ntal branch and merged to Istio’s main branch! This is a significant milestone for ambient mesh, paving the way for releasing ambient in Istio 1.18 and installing it by default in Istio’s future releases.</p><h2 id=major-changes-from-the-initial-launch>Major Changes from the Initial Launch</h2><p>Ambient mesh is designed for simplified operations, broader application compatibility, and reduced infrastructure cost. The ultimate goal of ambient is to be transparent to your applications and we have made a 