AI for Business Intelligence

2023. ThoughtSpot acquires BI platform Mode Analytics



ThoughtSpot, the AI-powered data analytics platform provider has acquired Mode Analytics, a startup specializing in business intelligence. The acquisition, worth $200 million, will enhance ThoughtSpot's generative AI applications and result in a doubling of its customer base. ThoughtSpot's platform is designed to enable individuals without technical expertise to perform data analysis. It utilizes tools that monitor data from sources like Snowflake and Databricks, identifying changing patterns and trends. Trusted by major companies such as Walmart and Apple, ThoughtSpot's products primarily focus on self-service analytics, incorporating AI and machine learning capabilities. Mode Analytics complements these offerings by introducing a new suite of products. Through this acquisition, ThoughtSpot customers will gain additional value by being able to create analytics applications and visualize data in Mode, which can then be seamlessly integrated into ThoughtSpot's dashboards.


2021. Zoho Analytics 5.0 uses AI and ML to assist you in getting insights from your data


Zoho has introduced an updated version of its self-service BI & analytics platform, Zoho Analytics. This enhanced version now incorporates Zoho DataPrep, a cloud-based service that augments data preparation and management capabilities. Additionally, Zoho Analytics Embedded BI empowers independent software vendors (ISVs) and developers to seamlessly integrate Zoho Analytics into their own product or solution offerings. The introduction of Zoho Analytics Marketplace enables partners and third-party vendors to create analytics applications on top of Zoho Analytics and market them through the Zoho Marketplace. The updated version also includes Zoho Analytics Native Apps, which are applications developed by Zoho and natively embedded within third-party apps, making them readily available in their respective marketplaces. With the integration of the AI assistant Zia, users can engage in natural language conversations with Zia, eliminating the need to learn complex SQL querying. This allows users to obtain relevant reports and receive the necessary answers in a conversational manner.

2021. AI Data management company Databricks raises $1B



Databricks, the company specializing in data and AI solutions that interact with corporate data stored in the public cloud, has successfully raised $1 billion in funding. Databricks generates revenue by offering its open-source products as software services, and its performance in this area has been exceptional, attracting a flurry of investors eager to be part of the deal. Initially aiming for a more modest $200 million raise, the company saw interest grow rapidly, leading to the final funding amount of $1 billion. Databricks even had to decline additional capital, as it made the decision to cap the funding round at $1 billion.


2020. Gong.io nabs $200M to enhance CRM with voice recognition



Gong has successfully raised a substantial amount of $200 million, resulting in a valuation of $2.2 billion. Gong aims to establish a unique category known as "revenue intelligence." In the current sales landscape, customer interactions are typically stored in CRM databases, relying on salesperson or customer service representative descriptions. Gong endeavors to revolutionize this process by capturing and analyzing both sides of these interactions using artificial intelligence. By transcribing and analyzing the conversations, Gong extracts significant insights to enhance the performance of customer-facing individuals and provide management with valuable information about staff performance. Going beyond, Gong offers strategic input, such as trends among competitors or customer responses to your products, enabling businesses to make informed decisions.


2020. Quantexa raises $64.7M to bring big data intelligence to risk analysis and investigations



Quantexa, the company behind the development of a machine learning platform called "Contextual Decision Intelligence" (CDI), has secured $64.7 million in a Series C funding round. CDI utilizes advanced analytics to analyze diverse data points, enabling improved identification of suspicious activities and the creation of comprehensive customer profiles for businesses. Quantexa initially gained traction by providing solutions to major banks and financial institutions. Moving forward, the company plans to further enhance its tools for the financial services sector while also expanding into two emerging markets: insurance and government/public sector organizations.


2020. AI for business processes provider FortressIQ snags $30M



FortressIQ, a startup dedicated to assisting companies in utilizing data to gain insights and enhance internal processes, has recently disclosed a $30 million Series B investment. Initially focused on employing computer vision to comprehend workflows, customers are now harnessing the power of this data to drive their own internal transformations. In the past, achieving such transformations necessitated the involvement of expensive consulting teams, but FortressIQ endeavors to leverage software, data, and artificial intelligence to eliminate the need for consultants and uncover areas for process improvement.


2020. Retina raises $2.5M for its AI-powered customer analysis software



Closely examining customer behavior and their potential lifetime value has led to a successful funding round of $2.5 million for Los Angeles-based startup Retina. With Retina's Shopify app, vendors can effectively process data and obtain predictive insights on customer lifetime value. Even for sellers not integrated with Shopify, Retina offers the option to analyze their data and provide valuable predictions on customer value. The analysis performed by Retina takes into account factors such as recency, frequency, and churn rates to map out customer acquisition strategies. The software collects relevant data by analyzing transaction logs from customer data or payment platforms, as stated by a company spokesperson.


2018. Zoho Analytics got AI-powered Assistant



Zoho Analytics now incorporates Zia, an AI-powered intelligent assistant. With Zia, you can effortlessly ask questions in natural language, such as "Provide me with support tickets received this month, categorized by product and region" or "Give me sales data by country and channel." Zia translates these inquiries into complex SQL queries in the backend and suggests multiple relevant reports. You can save the most suitable suggestion directly as a report. Additionally, the new version of Zoho Analytics streamlines data analysis across various applications, enabling the creation of interactive reports and dashboards. It accurately predicts future trends based on historical data. Furthermore, Zoho Analytics introduces seven new connectors for popular business apps. Each connector includes over 100 pre-built reports and KPI dashboards specific to different domains, offering immediate benefits to users.


2018. Oracle acquires predictive intelligence platform DataFox



Oracle has completed the acquisition of DataFox, a startup that has compiled an extensive database of companies, currently encompassing 2.8 million public and private businesses and expanding by 1.2 million annually. DataFox leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze this data and generate valuable business insights and predictions. The resulting business intelligence can be utilized for various customer relationship management (CRM) services, including prioritizing sales accounts and identifying potential leads. By combining Oracle's expertise with DataFox's capabilities, Oracle Cloud Applications will be enriched with a comprehensive collection of AI-driven company data and signals. This integration empowers customers to make more informed decisions and achieve enhanced business outcomes. DataFox will join Oracle's existing portfolio of business planning services, which includes ERP, CX, HCM, and SCM.


2018. Adobe introduced AI assistant for Adobe Analytics



Adobe has unveiled Intelligent Alerts, an AI-powered virtual assistant designed to enhance the capabilities of Adobe Analytics by assisting users in uncovering valuable insights that may have gone unnoticed. This intelligent assistant works by delivering alerts to analysts, which they can explore to gain deeper understanding and additional insights. If the analyst is unsatisfied with the results, they have the ability to fine-tune the system, allowing it to learn and adapt to their specific data requirements over time. Users have the flexibility to configure the frequency and quantity of alerts they receive. Intelligent Alerts is part of Adobe's broader artificial intelligence platform, known as Sensei, which aims to infuse intelligence throughout the entire range of Adobe products.


2018. Tableau acquired AI-analytics startup Empirical Systems



Enterprise BI giant Tableau has made an acquisition of Empirical Systems, a startup in its early stages that specializes in AI. The product offered by Empirical Systems is currently in private Beta and functions as an embedded engine within other applications. This feature seamlessly integrates with the Tableau analytics platform, making it a valuable addition. In addition, Tableau will be able to leverage the expertise of the engineering team from Empirical Systems to enhance its AI capabilities and utilize the advanced technology that underlies the startup's product. Empirical Systems was specifically developed to simplify complex data modeling and enable sophisticated statistical analysis, thereby empowering individuals to gain insights from their data and make informed, data-driven decisions, regardless of their technical proficiency.


2017. Tableau acquired natural language processing startup ClearGraph



Business intelligence solution provider Tableau has acquired ClearGraph, a service that enables users to query and visualize large volumes of business data using natural language queries. Tableau intends to integrate this technology into its own products, aiming to simplify the process of data visualization for its users through similar queries. Recent advancements in natural language processing and machine learning have enabled ClearGraph and similar services to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying database, effectively translating sentences into database queries. Considering that competitors like Microsoft's Power BI already offer this capability, it comes as no surprise that Tableau is exploring this avenue as well.


2015. Microsoft integrates Cortana into Power BI service



Microsoft has made an announcement stating that the Cortana personal assistant will be integrated into Power BI, its business intelligence tool. It's important to note that Power BI already possessed some natural language query capabilities. With this integration, Cortana will be able to respond to written and spoken queries using data sets from Power BI. For instance, users can ask questions like "What was the revenue for the last quarter?" or request a chart showing the "number of opportunities by team." To utilize this new feature, users must grant Cortana access to their Power BI data sets. It's worth mentioning that Microsoft also offers Cortana Analytics, which caters to enterprises and focuses more on the machine learning and automation services that drive Cortana, rather than the Cortana client itself.


2015. Microsoft announced voice-enabled Big Data platform Cortana Analytics Suite


Microsoft has unveiled the Cortana Analytics Suite, a comprehensive offering comprising various components. This suite encompasses Azure ML, Microsoft's cloud-based machine learning product, PowerBI, a data visualization tool, and Azure Data Catalog, a service specifically designed for sharing and surfacing data repositories within an organization. By leveraging its analytics technology developed for Power BI, the suite enables on-demand data association from multiple sources, making it accessible through touch and voice-based queries. Although Cortana, the voice-driven personal assistant tool in Windows 10, plays a relatively minor role in the solution, Microsoft chose to name the suite after it to symbolize the contextualized intelligence that the company aims to deliver across the entire suite.