Today we’re excited to announce ThoughtSpot Sage, our new search experience that combines the power of GPT’s natural language processing and generative AI capabilities with the accuracy and security of our patented self-service analytics platform. With this new integration, data teams will be able to exponentially increase their impact across an organization as business users self-serve personalized, actionable, and trustworthy insights like never before.
Why we’ve integrated with GPT to launch ThoughtSpot Sage
Every day, billions of people use search to find information on the internet. The emergence of GPT-3 and other large language models (LLM) promises to reimagine the entire experience of how people access information. Ask ChatGPT a question like “How do I fix a leaky faucet?” and it impresses by curating a personalized set of instructions for fixing the plumbing. Neat? Absolutely! But useful in a business context, with all the complexities that come along with large, real world data sets? Not without the right guardrails and application.
There’s no doubt GPT has massive potential to completely revolutionize business analytics. But to fully realize it, businesses must be able to apply the technology to real-world data in a governed and secure manner that generates trusted insights.
On its own, GPT is simply unable to handle the complexity of real-world business data. That’s because GPT works by taking input from the search bar in natural language, and generating a very simple SQL statement. This creates pitfalls in the following areas:
Complexity: The model struggles to interpret complex data—it is unable to compute joins on multiple tables, may not be able to handle queries on multiple attributes, and has limited support for handling date functions.
Accuracy: Additionally, interpreted math calculations are often incorrect. All of this inaccuracy degrades trust in business analytics use cases. The same is true for cases wherein GPT generates SQL outcomes. If one must review the generated SQL code for correctness, the technology is only adding more complexity for the user.
Interactivity: While GPT is able to generate SQL executed on a single, flat table, the output can only be presented in a simple static chart. That means users don’t have the ability to drill down into their data to find the root cause and answer the next question.
Governance and security: Without the right infrastructure, GPT doesn’t provide any guardrails around who can access what data. This lack of security ultimately leads to questions around data compliance, which becomes incredibly important in most of today’s data-heavy industries.
How does ThoughtSpot Sage work?
Augmenting ThoughtSpot’s dynamic search architecture with GPT creates an even more powerful natural language search experience that works on business data. When business questions are typed into the search bar, ThoughtSpot’s search data model provides appropriate guardrails, security controls, and knowledge around the physical tables to GPT.
ThoughtSpot Sage supplements GPT’s algorithm with information on attribute columns, synonyms, indexed values, formulas, join paths, and analytical keywords. An accurate, business-ready SQL statement is then generated and executed on a complex relational schema. This results in trusted, personalized, and granular answers to your ad-hoc business questions. In addition, feedback is provided back to the search engine to fine-tune the search quality.
Unlock your data’s value with AI-powered analytics
ThoughtSpot Sage is now available in preview, and we encourage all of our customers to sign up and check it out. Included in this iteration are multiple guardrails that analysts can use to make insights even more valuable and trusted for business users, including the ability to curate data enrichment and provide input on AI-generated insights to improve the quality of results. Additional key features include:
1. AI-powered search in natural language
ThoughtSpot Sage lets you ask questions the way you normally speak. You can ask a question like “What were channel sales in California in the last two quarters?” and ThoughtSpot Sage will translate your question to uncover relevant, trusted answers from your data.
2. AI-generated answers
A list of search results from your analytics catalog is great, but what about pinpointing the exact insight you’re looking for? ThoughtSpot Sage will curate a custom answer for you in the form of a best fit visualization, so you don’t have to find or create it yourself. You can freely drill anywhere or ask the next question to uncover even deeper insights.
3. AI-powered search recommendations
Not sure what question to start with? ThoughtSpot Sage gets you past the overwhelming feeling of an empty search bar by suggesting a set of starter questions to explore your data. Once you get going, you can easily follow up with questions of your own, or train the AI engine to suggest questions more relevant to you.
4. AI-assisted data modeling
With ThoughtSpot Sage, you can create search data models that allow AI to answer questions faster than ever, all while preserving the reliability and guardrails of your data model. For example, synonyms for common business terms (e.g. revenue vs. sales) can be generated quickly, helping business users understand exactly what they’re looking for. What’s more, analysts have the power to update synonyms, further shortening the time to valuable insights. Coming soon, auto-generated descriptions will be available to help business users understand exactly what they’re looking at.
5. AI-generated insights that get smarter with every use
Each time you create an insight with ThoughtSpot Sage, you can provide thumbs up or down feedback to fine tune the quality and relevance of the insights. This feedback will then be used to make the whole system smarter for everyone.
ThoughtSpot and GPT are better together
With ThoughtSpot Sage, your business gets all the advantages of our SpotIQ AI technology and built-in dynamic search engine, combined with GPT to create both human and AI-generated insights with the highest levels of confidence. Human-in-the-loop machine learning gets smarter, and more refined the more you use the system.
Try it out for yourself
As announced at Beyond 2023, ThoughtSpot Sage is available in our 14-day free trial. Now, you can experience the value of AI-Powered Analytics for yourself, invite team members to join in on the fun, and connect with live members of the ThoughtSpot team to discuss your specific use cases. So, what are you waiting for? Start your free trial today!
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