Data discovery is built on a foundation of business context
As data wealth grows, many organizations grapple with a fundamental challenge: helping people find Correct data and decide whether to use it or not. Teams get stuck because they can’t confidently answer basic questions: Does this data exist? where is? What data should I use? What does it mean? Do you trust it? And how do I get access?
In practice, the search is fragmented. Data are organized around sources and production systems, while business meaning resides elsewhere in dashboards, documents, wikis, or institutional knowledge. Trust signals and access workflows are often disconnected from the places where people actually look for data.
When search lacks business context, users waste time searching for or copying tasks, managers are hindered, and adoption stalls even when the right data already exists.
A unified and intelligent search experience across all data and AI assets
Today, Databricks is introducing a new Discover experience, now available in beta, built directly into the Unity Catalog. Discover Pages replaces fragmented, tool-specific searches with a single, curated way to find and understand data, analytics, and AI assets. Instead of digging across tools or guessing which dataset to use, users can find relevant, trusted assets in one place.
Unity Catalog enables data intelligence applied to search, where:
- Business meaning embedded directly in the catalog Through domains (business-aligned groups of assets) and governed metadata, so users can understand what the data represents, not just where it resides.
- Certifications and endorsements signal trust and quality on the surface Together across assets, helping teams focus on the data that matters most
- Platform-native data intelligence Uses signals such as use, lineage, and ownership to provide context about how assets are used and who is responsible for them
- Unified request-for-access workflows Allows users to move from search to action without leaving the experience
The Discover page spans your entire lakehouse, from structured and unstructured data to dashboards, metrics, notebooks, applications, and AI assets like Genie Spaces, all exposed through a single, governed experience.
Domain: conducting research about how the business works
The domain, now in beta, provides the foundation for business-aligned search.
Rather than forcing assets into rigid technical hierarchies, domains organize data and analytics assets by business unit or use case, such as finance, marketing, or customer telemetry. Importantly, assets can appear in multiple domains. This eliminates the tradeoffs of traditional folder structures, where teams must decide which asset belongs in a single hierarchy.
Domains combine metadata intelligence with human control:
- Popular and frequently used assets are automatically exposed
- Stewards can pin high-priority or newly published assets to ensure the most important datasets and dashboards are easy to find
- Assets can be curated across multiple domains without duplication
It also allows domain managers to:
- Curate relevant assets in data and analytics
- Customize the browsing experience on each domain page
- Add rich description and designate both technical and business owners
For users, this means search is intuitive and connected to their work. For organizations, this means that business context is flexibly encoded in the catalog without imposing brittle hierarchies.
AI signals guided by human expertise with intelligent curation
Our Discover page experience builds on existing Unity Catalog capabilities, combining AI-powered signals, such as usage and popularity, with human curation through authentication and deprecation tagging.
Certificates act as clear trust signals, helping users quickly identify which assets are recommended and approved sources of truth. AI-powered recommendations help surface relevant, high-value properties without overwhelming users.
Discover Pages also allows managers to create custom sections to highlight key assets on the Discover Page and individual domain pages. It can guide users who are unfamiliar with the organizational data landscape to the right data and insights.
Trust and reach are built directly into search
Discovery only works if users can act on what they find. The Discover page is built on the permissions model of the Unity Catalog, allowing organizations to provide comprehensive metadata access browse Still enforcing access controls on the underlying data being queried. Users can understand the purpose, quality and ownership of an asset Request direct access When they are ready to use it.
By embedding Access workflows into search, teams reduce manual approvals, reduce time to insight, and increase governance without turning managers into bottlenecks.
launch
Discover Pages and Domains now in beta AWS, Azure DatabricksAnd gcpand is built for enterprises with distributed data, domain-oriented teams, and data platforms serving both technical and business users. We invite you to enroll in the beta and share feedback to help shape the roadmap. check out our demo Come to see how it works in action!
Learn more about how Unity Catalog ensures that your data, models, agents, and apps are discoverable, controlled, and secure. our website.
