Apache Kafka is a foundational component in real-time AI data pipelines. It provides a high-throughput, fault-tolerant messaging layer that connects different stages of the data lifecycle.

Kafka’s roles include:

• Acting as a buffer between event producers (e.g., Snowplow) and downstream consumers.
• Enabling event-driven data processing using stream processors like Flink or Spark.
• Feeding real-time data into ML models for immediate predictions or into feature stores for model training.

Snowplow can publish enriched event data to Kafka, making it available for AI/ML systems to consume, process, and act on in real time.