From data to decisions: How Generative AI is transforming BI

Business leaders might already recognize the benefits of business intelligence. Yet, they may struggle with effectively capturing or organizing their data or extracting actionable insights from that data. They may also find it hard to see how artificial intelligence (AI) can benefit their business intelligence strategy.

Can generative AI bring value to and increase the impact of business intelligence? Based on the recent Forrester report, Generative AI: What It Means For Enterprise Business Intelligence, it’s clear that it can. Yet, the report cautions, "Enterprise technology and data leaders must approach the promise of gen AI with a 'trust, but verify' mindset..."

Here's how your organization can benefit from a well-rounded, AI-powered business intelligence solution today.

Why you need an AI-powered BI solution

Organizations are creating a massive amount of data today. 88% of enterprise digital leaders say that investments in data and analytics are a top organizational priority.

The best businesses use data to improve their operations and customer experiences. They gather, sort, and study data to find useful information. This helps them make innovative changes and have a positive impact.

A successful approach to BI starts with a strategy for:

• Collecting data from various sources across the organization
• Cleaning the data
• Storing the data

Storing data alone isn't enough for businesses. They need to analyze and visualize it. This helps them find patterns and insights in their operations. With this information, they can adjust their plans and strategies for the future.

The limitations of generic AI in BI

Business intelligence platforms make this process much simpler by collecting the data into a centralized cloud-based hub. They use APIs to collect data from the organization—and then they analyze the data. Finally, they show the results in easy-to-understand dashboards and reports.

But how does AI fit into that business intelligence strategy? The answer depends on where you look. If you simply use ChatGPT to assist in your data analysis, you might find yourself frustrated with the results. Forrester explains in their report that, while generative AI models can assist in some business functions, "gen AI platforms and applications (e.g., ChatGPT) aren’t a good fit for certain enterprise applications, including enterprise BI."

Beyond public AI: The power of Embedded Intelligence for BI

A public model may not meet your organization's specific needs. It may give general answers and show you insights that seem true but are not accurate. Using a public model presents data privacy issues as well.

Instead, look for a BI solution that embeds AI into workflows like analytics, reporting, and even app personalization. Using AI as a core tool in businesses makes understanding data simpler and more effective than before. Of the organizations using generative AI across their operations, 48% are uncovering new insights with AI, 55% are reducing costs with AI, and 63% say generative AI is encouraging innovation and growth.

AI capabilities that enhance your Business Intelligence

AI-powered BI platforms offer great benefits to organizations who adopt them. Here are a few high-level benefits Forrester sees from BI platforms that integrate AI:

1. Long-form natural language generation (NLG)

Generative AI models are great at writing, summarizing, and explaining concepts. Organizations can use this capability to tell stories around their historical data. This comes in the form of reports, marketing campaigns, customer communication, or other narratives. NLG can speed up report writing and create personalized messages, making operations more efficient and increasing their effectiveness.

2. Text mining capabilities

Generative AI models excel at scanning and analyzing text. This involves searching for answers to questions, performing statistical analysis, or matching outputs.

Use text mining to further classify and categorize data into topics, events, or names. This makes it easier for search and access. Having cleaner, more structured data helps AI work more efficiently and deliver better answers and insights to business units and customers.

3. An enriched semantic layer

Organizations have the most to gain from AI by customizing it to their domain-specific knowledge and information. By adding an enriched semantic layer to their BI platform, organizations can standardize terminology, metrics, and descriptions. This improves the relevance of insights, reduces errors or hallucinations, and enhances the way data is governed and organized.

4. Automated code generation and validation

Use AI to clean and prepare your organizational data for more efficient AI functionality and better insights. Additionally, AI can find and fix errors in SQL or Python code or write new code for domain-specific querying. This helps reduce barriers to coding and ensure that data is ready to be used for BI initiatives.

Why MicroStrategy? The AI-powered BI leader

As highlighted in Forrester's report, MicroStrategy stands out by offering a comprehensive BI platform that seamlessly integrates AI into every aspect of your data workflows. MicroStrategy AI helps users in all business areas use AI for self-service analytics, reporting, and custom applications effectively.

Democratizing data insights

MicroStrategy AI isn't simply for data analysts. It provides leaders with better insights and decision-making for business intelligence, no matter their level of data knowledge. Unlike public AI models that can be opaque and raise privacy concerns, MicroStrategy's agile and open platform ensures transparency and trust while supporting large-scale analytics.

The path to data-driven success

Business leaders understand that the right BI approach is crucial for future success. The key lies not in generic AI tools like ChatGPT. It lies in investing in BI solutions where generative AI can play a pivotal role in transforming raw data into actionable strategies and informed decisions.

Transform Your BI with AI—Start Now

Discover how MicroStrategy's embedded AI can revolutionize your organization's decision-making. Explore the Forrester report, Generative AI: What It Means For Enterprise Business Intelligence, to gain valuable insights into the impact of Generative AI on Enterprise Business Intelligence.

Experience the power of AI-driven BI firsthand by starting your free trial of MicroStrategy Auto Express today.