ThoughtSpot focuses on simplifying analytics with AI at Beyond 2023

Today, business intelligence (BI) specialist ThoughtSpot hosted its “Beyond 2023” customer conference, where it announced new product capabilities aimed at simplifying analytics for enterprise users. 

A large part of the conversation revolved around consuming insights via AI. The company also detailed notable accessibility features, including a mobile-friendly way to experience analytics, and integrations to glean insights where teams work.

“Each of the new enhancements in this launch embraces the future of AI-powered analytics and enables organizations of all sizes to experience, collaborate, model and access data in new ways that are personalized to the user and boost productivity,” said Sumeet Arora, chief development officer at ThoughtSpot. 

Here’s a rundown of the key developments:

Querying data with natural language prompts

ThoughtSpot led the discussion about simplifying analytics by talking about Sage, its new LLM-driven search experience. First announced in March, Sage provides enterprise users with a chat experience where they can type natural language prompts to query data for text or visual insights. It combines foundational models, including GPT-3, with ThoughtSpot’s patented search technology to convert the prompts into SQL and produce answers with accuracy and reliability. 

The company said Sage can provide results in seconds, and includes related suggestions for drilling into the served insights. Users also get the ability to provide feedback by correcting keyword tokens, further training the system to learn and correct future queries. The technology is in private preview, with ThoughtSpot planning to open access in a phased manner. It said the solution will be available initially to all current and new users of its platform’s Trial and Team editions.

Staying in the loop via Monitor for Mobile

Next, ThoughtSpot debuted a mobile-first analytics feature called ThoughtSpot Monitor for Mobile. This dedicated feature inside the ThoughtSpot app allows users to subscribe to key performance indicators and automatically get notified on their mobile devices as these metrics change, also receiving an explanation of the drivers behind that change. This ensures teams can make decisions whenever and wherever required.

To provide explanations, ThoughtSpot uses AI. First, it analyzes attributes behind each KPI and uses machine learning to identify what is driving the changes. Then, with the help of generative AI, it delivers an explanation, helping users understand what changed and why — and what they need to do in response. Currently the feature is preview, but ThoughtSpot says it will be available in the coming months.

New integrations, including an AI assistant in Slack

The business intelligence leader also announced a series of integrations to help teams take advantage of insights right where they work. These include a connector allowing users to share links from ThoughtSpot Liveboards and generate visualization previews in Slack; an interactive AI assistant called Spot to query data in natural language via Slack; and ThoughtSpot Analytics for Excel, Google Sheets and Slides. 

ThoughtSpot Analytics for Sheets is available starting today, while the rest of the capabilities are in preview and slated to roll out at a later date.

ThoughtSpot is also making its Liveboards (ThoughtSpot’s version of a dashboard) more collaborative, with new features such as note tiles, cross filters and parameters. The note tiles can be used to add details like branding, explanations or context. Filters can help ensure consistency in analysis, while parameters can be used to conduct a “what-if” scenario analysis.

The company is also rolling out an in-app commenting system to promote feedback, collaboration and brainstorming, as well as verified Liveboards to increase transparency and trust for end users.

Visual data modeling for analytics

Finally, the company updated its data workspace with a new data modeling studio, an offering that provides a visual drag-and-drop interface and guided UI to simplify modeling data for analytics. 

With this solution, ThoughtSpot says, users can inherit existing joins from their database or create new joins through a guided UI; build guardrails for search by dragging and dropping relevant columns in their model; and scale data literacy across the business by adding custom formulas, adjusting attributes and configuring column properties.

ThoughtSpot Beyond 2023 runs May 9-10, virtually.