Q1 2026

New features and improvements introduced from January to March 2026

New AI provider and LLM integrations to power your AI Agents

January 20th, 2026

New CARTO platform

CARTO now supports seven additional AI providers, expanding the AI and LLM integrations available to power AI Agents.

Previously limited to OpenAI and Google AI Studio, you can now connect AI Agents to models hosted on your preferred cloud or data platform:

• Google Vertex AI: Enterprise GCP deployments with service account authentication.

• Amazon Bedrock: Claude models through AWS infrastructure.

• Snowflake Cortex: AI models within your Snowflake environment.

• Databricks Model Serving: Models through Databricks endpoints.

• Oracle Generative AI: Access to models via OCI.

• Anthropic: Direct access to Claude models.

• Azure OpenAI Service: OpenAI models through Azure.

These new integrations allow AI Agents to run on your preferred cloud or data platform, leverage existing cloud contracts, meet data residency requirements, and access the latest large language models available from each provider.

Configure providers in Settings > CARTO AI. See the CARTO AI documentation for setup instructions.

CARTO Basemap labels now stay on top of your layers

January 14th, 2026

Improvement Builder

When using CARTO Basemaps, labels (like city and street names) now automatically appear on top of your map layers instead of being hidden underneath them.

This makes it easier to read your maps, especially when working with multiple overlapping layers. You can still turn labels off in the basemap settings if you prefer a cleaner look.

H3-based isolines powered by TravelTime

January 12th, 2026

New Workflows, Analytics Toolbox

A new capability is now available for generating H3-based isolines using TravelTime, expanding how accessibility and travel-time analysis can be performed in CARTO.

This release introduces a new endpoint in the Location Data Services (LDS) API that leverages TravelTime’s H3 isoline support. In addition, corresponding functions are available in the Analytics Toolbox (for BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks and Redshift), along with a new Create H3 Isolines component in Workflows, enabling low-code and programmatic access to this functionality.

Customers can now generate H3-indexed isochrones directly, with support for the same configuration options provided by the underlying TravelTime API, including departure time and transport mode. Using H3 as the output format simplifies downstream analysis, aggregation, and visualization, particularly for workflows that already rely on hexagonal indexing.

Full support for new Databricks Spatial SQL functions and data types

January 7th, 2026

New CARTO Platform

A new Databricks connection type is now generally available across all CARTO accounts, delivering deeper and more modern support for Databricks as a data warehouse and compute platform.

This integration adopts Databricks SQL Warehouses as the sole compute resource, providing a serverless, cloud-native experience without the need to manage traditional compute clusters. It also leverages Databricks’ native spatial capabilities, including the GEOMETRY data type and Spatial SQL functions documented by Databricks, enabling efficient storage and processing of spatial data directly in SQL without external libraries.

Connectivity options include Personal Access Tokens (PAT), M2M, and U2M integrations, offering flexibility in how authentication and access are managed. Builder and Workflows fully support Databricks tables with geometry types out of the box, including query sources, SQL parameters, Location Data Services, and Create Builder Map workflows — no additional data preparation is required to work with spatial columns.

The Analytics Toolbox now installs directly into the Databricks Unity Catalog with no external dependencies, simplifying governance and deployment. Older Databricks connection types remain available for existing accounts that used them previously. This release represents a significant step in CARTO’s support for major cloud data warehouse providers and extends CARTO’s capabilities for spatial analytics on modern data platforms.