Ep90: System One Model with Jev + Neo4j Startup Program on Aura

In this episode, Jennifer recaps her Northeast US Java User Group tour and dives into the week's biggest tech release of Jev (a new System 1 model) along with Neo4j NODES 2026, upcoming projects, and two must-read blog posts.

• Java User Group tour: shout-out to Northeast US JUG tour groups! TriJUG (Raleigh), Charlotte JUG, and a combined Richmond JUG / GraphRVA provided experiences that smashed it out of the park.
• NODES 2026 agenda now live: Neo4j's annual online developer conference returns November 12th, featuring all in-depth technical sessions (no lightning talks this year). Pre-event "Road to NODES" workshops begin around October 1st (seven sessions available).
• Java book milestone: All chapters submitted; editing and publishing prep remain.
• Jev — a new System 1 Model: Released early this week. Rather than outputting text, Jev focuses on decision probabilities and traditional ML calculations. Potential use cases include database query planning, deterministic agent tool selection, and much more!
• Jev operations use three modes — choice (pick best from a list), noul (score 0–1 for truthfulness), and score (numeric scoring).
• Spring AI support: Spring AI already has integration for Jev; blog post linked in notes.
• Upcoming explorations: Jev, RAG pipeline benchmarking, multi-agent applications, MCP security & access restrictions, and guardrails for agentic systems.
• Blog post — The startup’s guide to getting started building on Neo4j Aura: Pradeep Ponduri's walkthrough on provisioning Aura instances via CLI, plus training and GraphRAG library resources for startups.
• Blog post — Navigating a Neo4j Knowledge Graph with Jev: Michael Hunger's early exploration of Jev with Neo4j, including demo code and pros/cons.

Thanks for listening, and happy coding!