Advisor spotlight: How AI is transforming business intelligence

May 23, 2023

AI's Impact on Business Intelligence

AI is rapidly impacting nearly every industry and function, with professionals questioning how the technology will alter their workflow. This series explores AI's influence on specific functions, its benefits, and positioning for advantages.

Office Hours spoke with Drew Goulart, GTM Lead at Zenlytic, about how large-language models enable the potential of self-serve business intelligence.

How is generative AI transforming the field of business intelligence?

"Generative AI has already infused itself into business intelligence tools in multiple capacities. Some tools use ‘predictive AI’ to analyze large datasets, identify patterns, and predict outcomes. Others leverage LLMs to increase the velocity of insights and make data more accessible to more people. Whether it’s causal analytics, predictive analytics, or self-serve exploration, generative AI enables more people to gain value from data."

Who will benefit most from these innovations?

"Non-technical business users will benefit the most. Those leading revenue, marketing, and operations teams rely on data but may lack SQL/data skills to extract necessary insights. Some argue that business users require data teams for guidance on questions, metrics, and actions. However, data teams may lack the business context for data actionability. Business leaders, as domain experts, understand their data nuances and measurement priorities. Providing BI tools that business users can understand is key."

Common concerns about the adoption of emerging AI technologies?

"LLMs can hallucinate and may generate unreliable predictions. For significant decisions, trust in the data is essential. While revolutionary, LLMs require proper guardrails for reliability."

How is Zenlytic positioning itself for the future of AI?

"Zenlytic combines LLMs with the accuracy of our semantic layer, ensuring fast, reliable, and accessible data analytics. We utilize LLMs for complex data comprehension while our semantic layer defines metrics, joins tables, and compiles complex SQL queries accurately. We’ve developed a fully-featured BI tool that users can interact with via conversation."

Excitement about the future of AI in business intelligence?

"The most exciting aspect of AI in business intelligence is its capacity to solve real problems faced by companies. Data teams often spend up to 75% of their time addressing ad hoc questions from business users, who may wait days for answers, sometimes choosing to avoid data due to the hassle. Self-serve business intelligence allows both teams to focus their strengths for faster and smarter growth."