Artificial intelligence in Business Intelligence

Introduction:

With each and every passing data the amount of data generated in the world is increasing exponentially. The amount of data generated in 2015 is more than the previous decade. Not only we have structured data from databases, but also with coming of various social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram etc immense amount of unstructured data are also getting generated.

This raises another even more important question, we are generating data but is this data being analyzed to create insights which could help in running businesses more affectively? No. Do you know that at the moment, less than 0.5% of all data is ever analysed and used? Just imagine the potential here. This potential can be leveraged using Business Intelligence. Using BI we can understand what really the data means.

What is Business Intelligence:-

Business Intelligence is a technology which can help in transforming data into insights in the form of various reports dashboards what-if analysis etc. These insights can help managers make data driven decisions rather intuition driven decision. Getting insights by using BI is the first step but requires more to make decisions based on the insights. Data Scientists are the ones who can explain these results in a plain language and make decisions out of it. But with growing proliferation of data, the world is going to face the shortage of these Data Scientists. Here is where Artificial Intelligence comes into picture.

 

What is Artificial Intelligence:-

Artificial Intelligence is a technology and a branch of Computer Science which studies and develops intelligent machines and software. These machines or software have inbuilt intelligence allowing them to perceives its environment and takes actions that maximise its chances of success. Artificial Intelligence can be used to design “Smart Machine Models” to analyse unstructured data, Video, images and human language. This use of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning algorithms in BI is called collectively as Cognitive BI.

 

Evolution of BI:-

It all started from 1958, when Peter Luhn, known as father of Business Intelligence invented the term “Business Intelligence”. Since then, there has been significant use of BI in every sectors of the industry. As far as Reports are considered in BI, there have been many techniques to create it using a BI Tool. Earlier, the reports were generated by manually playing with the data. This technique required tiresome work of connecting tables and columns and any data analysis required many days at the developers end.

As data size increased, dashboards became main stream with input parameters and advanced visualizations. Still this was a time consuming process with many to and fro between business managers and developers.

To shorten the time required for analysis, self service BI came into picture. Pioneered by tools like Tableau, this was a lot UI driven allowing users to drag and drop columns from tables, do customizations and create data analysis on the fly.

Cognitive BI: The next big thing in BI

Self service BI still had many issues. A business user is aware of his business but is not aware of the kind of functions to be applied, what all columns and tables are present and what does it mean, whether aggregation needs to be done or not etc.

This is where BI powered by Artificial Intelligence comes into picture. Open source BI tools like Helical insight are trying to integrate machine learning and natural language processing into BI and trying to disrupt this sector. With integrated NLP, business users can type their questions and the complex algorithms will understand the context and filters etc, it will understand to which column and table it needs to query upon and generate the desired result for an end user. Also with machine learning, the vocabulary of the tool will keep in improving as people keep on using it. Cognitive BI will make the entire data analysis and decision making instantaneous.

Problems solved by BI powered by Artificial Intelligence:

What are the challenges faced by the BI tool users and how Artificial Intelligence can solve it?

  1. Shortage of Data Science Experts– With the advent of Big Data, Companies now are generating tons of data which needs to be analysed to gain opportunities. This has also increased the demand of Data science experts who help in generating reports using BI. Thus AI can take the place of these Data Scientists to generate reports and other visualisations. With search driven analytics, tools like Helical Insight can empower anyone to be a data scientist.
  2. Cost– Artificial Intelligence can save up to 77% of the cost required to write the report. Humans are prone to error and it is time consuming, whereas if the same is done by machine it is much faster and reliable.
  3. Real-Time Insights– Most importantly, they can transform Real- time data into written reports, so businesses can make informed decisions with the data which is seconds old.
  4. Scalability– Due to substantial growth of data, one single dashboard cannot portray the information coming from multiple data points. AI can apply reasoning to this data and explain what it means at scale.

 

Imagine a ‘Google Search’ like feature in your BI tool in which when you type any business question, it will give you reports and data visualizations that you need. And this kind of functionality (Instant BI) is available in the BI tool called “Helical Insight”. This tool uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning Algorithms to give Real-time insights and is the first ever tool to provide Cognitive BI. To know more about this tool log on to www.helicalinsight.com

You May Also Like

Leave a Reply

Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered