The evolution of data platforms in the context of AI application development and the emergence of agentic AI have been at the heart of the news for data management and analytics publishers in 2024.
For the past two years, since the launch of ChatGPT, publishers have only had eyes for generative AI.
A capacity that has brought out the promise of the augmented employee. It is embodied by the co-pilots, launched in droves by publishers from 2023.
These assistants enable natural language interactions. But they are reactive. They require the user to engage by asking questions. Some assistants are sophisticated enough to suggest follow-up questions that lead to deeper analysis.
It was only in the last year that some of these assistants were delivered… and immediately made obsolete by the emergence of another trend: agentic AI.
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From promises to reality
In fact, market players had rushed into 2023. About three months after the initial launch of ChatGPT , the first generative AI initiatives from data management and analysis tool vendors began to emerge.
Players such as Pyramid Analytics, ThoughtSpot, and Sisense have announced integrations with LLM providers and have subsequently developed AI assistants that allow customers to interact with their data using natural language.
Many other vendors followed suit, promising tools that could make business intelligence capabilities accessible to virtually every employee. These tools also aimed to take care of tedious tasks like programming and documentation, making experts more efficient.
However, most of these promises were only in preview stages when they were first announced. Throughout 2023, many hopes were raised, but few of them came to fruition.
“We saw a lot of use cases for generative AI in BI software emerge last year [in 2023, Ed.], but most were still in prototypes or demos, which sometimes included gimmicks,” observed IDC analyst Stewart Bond in April 2024.
That began to change in late 2023, with MicroStrategy becoming one of the first vendors to make its generative AI-powered capabilities generally available. Many more followed in 2024, and the promise of generative AI began to be realized.
Data management specialists like Informatica and Dremio have launched AI-powered assistants , as have analytics experts like Tableau and Qlik.
Read the full story, via TechTarget.
