Matillion launches Maia to automate & simplify data engineering

Matillion has introduced Maia, a suite of artificial intelligence-powered data agents designed to streamline data engineering workflows and enhance productivity for data professionals.

Maia acts as a team of AI data engineers that supports the work of existing data professionals, spanning the entire spectrum of data engineering activities. The tool is positioned to ease the manual work typically associated with data pipeline creation, while also making these processes more accessible to users without deep technical expertise.

According to Matillion, Maia agents enable the rapid development of complex, end-to-end data pipelines from natural language prompts. This capability is intended to accelerate project timelines and empower a broader range of users to engage directly in data engineering tasks.

Matthew Scullion, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Matillion, commented: "Data engineering is centered on repetitive work that is important, but often gritty and sometimes boring. Imagine what could be achieved if the heavy-lifting of that gritty work was taken away so data engineers could focus instead on driving real business value and impact. That is exactly what Maia does - data engineering at the speed of thought."

He added: "Maia takes AI capabilities in data engineering far beyond generating code, working end-to-end across the full workflow of data engineering, including ingestion, transformation, orchestration, data quality, DataOps, management and beyond."

Building on Matillion's Data Productivity Cloud, Maia has been designed with cloud-based data and AI architectures in mind, with the aim of providing trust, speed, and scalability. The forthcoming availability of Maia through the Snowflake Marketplace is expected to expand access for users already utilising the Snowflake data ecosystem.

Kieran Kennedy, Vice President, Data Cloud Products at Snowflake, said: "Maia allows joint Matillon and Snowflake users to do more with their data and AI, regardless of their technical capabilities. Its architecture means that the technology is trusted by design, providing users peace of mind alongside significant productivity gains. We look forward to seeing how users harness Maia to boost data productivity and free up data engineers to innovate and ideate."

Beyond supporting human data teams, Maia also enables collaboration with other AI agents, which can independently request the creation of data pipelines for particular business objectives. This feature is intended to further reduce workflow bottlenecks and facilitate agile data management across various departments and business cases.

Matillion has established a record of integrating AI functionalities into its platform, with Maia following a series of previous AI-focused releases. Earlier offerings began in 2023, with ongoing product efforts in 2024 encompassing integrations with Snowflake Cortex AI and Snowpark Container Services.

The company is currently making Maia available by invitation, allowing selected users to request exclusive access and provide feedback during the early phase of roll-out. Matillion plans to gradually extend access to Maia for its broader user community as development progresses.

Matillion's platform is used globally by enterprises across sectors including technology, finance, energy, and communications for a wide range of data-driven needs, from business analytics to machine learning and AI use cases. Maia is expected to expand these capabilities by automating repetitive work and broadening participation in data engineering.