On November 11, I was lucky enough to attend Commvault SHIFT in NYC. I’m no stranger to data protection, or Commvault. This was a great opportunity to dive deeper into some of Commvault’s newest products and technology.
Commvault Cloud Unity
One of the top asks for any customer of any platform is always a “single pane of glass”, which quite frankly, is also considered a myth. Having to log into different interfaces for different tasks is the bane of any administrator’s existence, but it’s also something we’ve all begrudgingly accepted.
The good news? If you’re using Commvault for data protection, this is no longer a myth with Commvault Cloud Unity.
Everything you could ever need to do in your environment is now at your fingertips in one place. Lucky for those of us in attendance, Commvault CEO Sanjay Mirchandani was on hand to give us a demo, yes you read that right.
An Afternoon with Arlie
One of my favorite “people” I met at SHIFT was Arlie, short for autonomous resilience. Arlie is Commvault’s new conversational AI interface built directly into Commvault Cloud. I went into the demo expecting a standard chatbot that could surface documentation or point me toward the right dashboard. Instead, Arlie felt like the missing piece that makes data protection feel modern, interactive, and fully aligned with how we already work across the rest of the enterprise stack.
Arlie is not just answering questions about backup jobs or retention policies. Arlie is woven directly into telemetry, events, configuration, and operational health. It is designed to act as a real assistant, one that has enough context to give you an immediate understanding of the state of your environment and guide you toward next steps. At SHIFT, the demo made it clear that this is not an early prototype. It is the beginning of an operational model where AI becomes a force multiplier for teams that are already stretched thin.
Another great part of the SHIFT NYC experience were the breakout sessions, led by mostly product managers. This was a great opportunity to learn more about the latest Commvault innovations and what’s also coming soon.
I truly had an AI afternoon, attending sessions like “Protecting the AI Stack: What You Need to Know” and “Arlie Ascends: From Gen AI Assistance to Agentic Automation”. It was nice not only to get to know Arlie better, but also learn that yes, Arlie can also protect your data in your important AI workflows.
The AI Era of Data Protection
One of the themes that came up repeatedly throughout the day was simple: traditional backup is no longer enough for the modern enterprise. We are living in an era defined by generative AI workloads, accelerated data growth, and rising cyber threats that target both production and backup environments. Commvault is positioning its AI capabilities to be a direct response to this moment.
The industry has moved past the stage where AI is a bolt on feature. Everything about data protection is becoming AI driven, from how threats are detected to how recovery plans are created and tested. Commvault announced new machine intelligence capabilities designed to help organizations understand their cyber readiness posture, identify anomalies earlier, and even simulate potential attack and recovery scenarios. This is the part that stood out to me. Backup products have always claimed to offer “resilience” but few have been able to tell you, in real time, whether you are truly resilient at this exact moment.
Commvault is clearly leaning into AI not just to be a part of the hype cycle, but as a foundational layer that changes how backup, recovery, and cyber preparedness are handled day to day. Their goal is to give enterprises what they have been asking for long before the AI boom even started: clarity, speed, and confidence. AI just happens to be the engine that finally makes those goals achievable.
Why This Matters for Enterprise Teams
We all know what happens in the real world. Backups get configured incorrectly. Policies drift. Storage targets fill. Ransomware simmers for a while before anyone even notices. When you look at the way Commvault is evolving its cloud platform, it is clear that the company wants to shift data protection from something reactive to something continuously measured and guided.
Arlie can surface not only what is happening in your environment right now, but what could happen next. It allows administrators to query their environment in natural language and receive context driven answers that combine configuration, telemetry, and security data. This matters because the jobs that already demand the most time and attention in IT environments are the very jobs that AI can support most effectively.
Combine that with Commvault Cloud Unity providing a true single view of your entire data protection landscape, and you start to see how the platform becomes more than just backup and recovery. It becomes an operational command center, with AI acting as an intelligent partner.
Looking Ahead
Commvault SHIFT was not just a product showcase. It was a clear signal that the future of enterprise resilience is going to be AI driven. Not hype driven. Not buzzword driven. Actually driven by the real problems enterprises face when protecting data across clouds, data centers, and edge locations.
For me, the takeaway was simple. The companies that thrive in the AI era will be the ones that view data protection as a strategic capability, not an afterthought. Commvault seems intent on making sure its customers can live in that world with confidence. Arlie and Commvault Cloud Unity feel like the right foundation for what comes next.
Melissa is an Independent Technology Analyst & Content Creator, focused on IT infrastructure and information security. She is a VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX-236) and has spent her career focused on the full IT infrastructure stack.