Q1 2026

New features and improvements introduced from January to March 2026

Additional AI models to power your Agents

February 17th, 2026

Improvement CARTO platform

We've expanded the AI models available for AI Agents with more advanced models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.

• More CARTO-managed models: Claude Opus 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Gemini 3 Pro, and Gemini 3 Flash are now available out of the box with no additional configuration.

• Broader bring-your-own-model support: You can now use Gemini 3, Claude Opus 4.5, and GPT-5.2 through any of our supported providers, including Vertex AI, Google AI Studio, Snowflake Cortex, Databricks Serving Model, AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

We recommend upgrading to the newest models available — you'll see a significant improvement in agent performance, reasoning, and tool usage.

Configure your models in Settings > CARTO AI — see the CARTO AI documentation for the full list of supported models and providers.

AI Agents now create interactive charts

February 9th, 2026

Improvement Builder

AI Agents can now generate and render interactive charts directly inside the conversation. Users can ask for data visualizations and see charts rendered inline — no need to leave the chat.

Charts expand the way AI Agents can communicate insights, complementing map layers with statistical visualizations like bar charts for comparisons, line charts for trends, or histograms for distributions. Combined with other tools, AI Agents can query your data, analyze it, and present findings in the format that best fits the question.

Learn more about AI Agent tools in our documentation.

Introducing our new Command-line Interface

January 29th, 2026

New CARTO platform

We're excited to announce the CARTO CLI, which brings command line power to your CARTO organization. Manage Maps, Workflows, connections and credentials; transfer assets between organizations, and query your organization's activity data; all from the terminal!

The CLI supports structured JSON output, non-interactive execution, and headless authentication, making it a natural interface to script and automate. To get started, head over to our CARTO CLI documentation.

Tracking activity data from public maps

January 29th, 2026

Improvement Workspace

Public maps are the way to distribute geospatial data and insights across wider audiences outside your organization. From coverage maps to deforestation storytelling, many geospatial dashboards are making an impact on public websites thanks to CARTO.

Starting now, CARTO administrators can measure that impact, and answer questions like:

• How many times my public maps have been viewed

• Which are my most active public maps

• How many exports from public maps last month...

We've automatically added to our Activity Data the data coming from your public maps thanks to a robust, secure, event pipeline that can track millions of events coming from unauthenticated users.

To get started, simply export your Activity Data or integrate it via API.

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 isochrones powered by TravelTime

January 12th, 2026

New Workflows, Analytics Toolbox

A new capability is now available for generating H3-based isochrones 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 isochrone 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.