Couchbase 8.0 Introduces AI-Focused Vector Indexing and Security Enhancements

Couchbase, Inc. has released Couchbase 8.0, a major update to its database platform designed to support large-scale AI and agentic applications, announced in a press release.

The new version introduces three vector indexing and retrieval options—Hyperscale, Composite, and Search Vector Indexes—allowing developers to handle diverse vector workloads and optimize for speed, scale, or accuracy. Couchbase 8.0 supports billion-scale vector searches with millisecond latency and tunable recall accuracy, available for both self-managed and Capella deployments.

Couchbase 8.0 adds built-in encryption through native data-at-rest encryption and support for the Key Management Interoperability Protocol for key handling. It also enhances cross data center replication with bidirectional conflict detection and mobile bucket support, helping meet regional compliance requirements. New intelligent auto-failover capabilities maintain availability during system disruptions.

For developers, the update introduces natural language querying for users unfamiliar with SQL++, a query workload repository for performance insights, and improved search relevance with user-defined synonyms. Couchbase 8.0 is now generally available across on-premises, cloud, and edge environments.