Alation says that the new query functionality offers an increase in accuracy of 30%, helping companies transform data catalogs into problems of problems
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The corporate data catalog has undergone spectacular changes in the Modern Gen Ai era.
Traditional data catalogs have served as static standards where users have sought data sets and documentation. The market has extended to include data governance capacities with many suppliers that mark technology as data intelligence platforms.
The first IA improvements to the implementations of the data catalog promised to revolutionize access to data, but often provided incoherent results to which companies could not trust for critical decisions.
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Alation, which is one of the largest providers of independent data intelligence platform And claims 40% of fortune 100 as customers, has regularly increased its AI capabilities because the need for data has changed.
Today, the company has announced its latest set of AI capabilities with an improved data request capacity which he calls “discuss with your data” which claims Improve the accuracy of responses up to 30%.
The transformation of the data catalog market reflects a fundamental change in business expectations. Organizations no longer want separate systems for discovery, governance and data analysis. They require unified platforms that democratize access to data while maintaining the accuracy required for critical decisions.
“I think Generative AI has an impact on data management work and also has an impact on the importance of data management and build applications, ” Satyen Sangani, CEO and co-founder of Alation told Venturebeat.
Traditional data catalogs operated on a destination model. Users went to the platform, looked for information and have traveled the results. This approach worked when the data teams served as intermediaries between professional users and data systems.
“Previously, Alation was sold to data management professionals,” said Sangani. “More and more, we find Cios, ctos and cpos that build technology And who tries to deploy technology, take advantage of the alation in order to be able to build agents And make sure that these agents are properly governed and managed. »»
In simple terms, professional users wanted direct access to data without technical expertise or analyst intervention. These types of users simply want to obtain the data they need and the right answers without worrying about the complexity of the underlying data platforms, where AI makes a big difference.
“I think the world has been turned upside down, and I think the cat is really the new support through which people will make this idea of self-service data, where the catalog was the old medium,” said Sangani.
The Alation approach focuses on what Sangani calls a “knowledge layer” of organized data products and complete metadata. Although Alation has had its own data and governance catalog capacities that it has developed in the past decade, it has recently acquired a private startup startup station to help develop agency AI capacities for data.
“What the figure station has done is that they have mainly built agents above structured data,” said Sangani. “What they achieved by building these agents is that The construction of these agents was not so much a problem of AI as a metadata and an evaluation problem. »»
The technology of the number station is now one of the new alation cat capabilities. This integration allows users to question their data via the cat, which makes data more accessible and questioned on a large scale. Technology focuses on the guarantee that good metadata is available, that the accuracy of the agents can be assessed and that agents receive correct instructions and adjustment.
Competitive positioning on the data intelligence market
There is no shortage of competition on the traditional data catalog market.
Large data platform suppliers, including data data and snowflake, each have their own technologies. Informatica, which is being acquired by Salesforce, is also active in space, just like Collibra and Atlan. In the midst of competition, the analyst Forrester firm positioned alation as a leader in its Q3 2025 Evaluation of data governance solutions.
Alation is differentiated by remaining in calculation of calculation and focusing on the metadata and evaluation layer rather than building an integrated vertically battery.
“We do not see ourselves as a calculation provider,” noted Sangani. “We allow you to build these precision agents, we allow you to test and assess them, and as in a critical way, we also allow you to make this agnostic of any underlying calculation.”
This approach responds to the company’s concerns concerning the locking of suppliers while solving the problem of precision which has a limited AI adoption in structured data scenarios.
“We believe that data management is no longer something that is next to it, but it has really merged with the construction of business processes, and that is what we consider exciting,” he said.
How the data catalog powered by AI fueling the intelligence of the real world
Euromonitor International demonstrates how the modern data catalog and data intelligence technology transform commercial operations.
The Market Intelligence Company incorporates the intelligence capacities of the conversational data of alation in its passport platform, which serves more than 2,500 organizations worldwide.
The Euromonitor data stack includes a native cloud data warehouse for structured data, which is supplied by a variety of sources, including operational databases, third -party applications and internal systems via data integration and ETL tools.
Business intelligence and analytics tools are on top, allowing analysts to create the reports and dashboards available in Passport. Company data science teams use cloud -based automatic learning services to create predictive models and advanced analyzes. Euromonitor has initiated alation to improve its passport AI capacities by adding natural language information on its statistical data.
“This ability Allows our customers to quickly access information using natural language requests without having to configure complex filters, “said AI generation director at Euromonitor International. “This allows our users to discover data and information that may have been hidden in the past.”
Lahouasnia explained that the previous work flow obliges customers to navigate in several pages and complex filters to find specific market data. Users often had to restart their research when refining the criteria. This created bottlenecks that have slowed customer decision -making.
The conversational interface allows customers to ask questions in simple English and receive immediate answers with complete transparency. The system shows underlying data sources, calculations and reasoning behind each response.
The implementation also allows flexible data aggregation. For example, Lahouasnia said that the Euromonitor’s passport platform includes pre-line regional groups such as the Middle East and Africa. He noted that many customers define the regions differently according to their internal commercial needs. The conversational interface allows personalized aggregation based on definitions specific to the customer without requiring data extraction and manual processing.
How companies should implement and deploy intelligence data
Euromonitor went what Lahouasnia described as a “rigorous” process when he sought to select a supplier.
This process and global trip have revealed a number of key lessons and best practices:
Confidence is the foundation: Never compromise precision, especially when your data is a product. Look for a solution that can provide a clear line, definitions and quality measurements. When users can see how an answer has been generated and where the data comes from, they strengthen confidence in the result and are more likely to use it for critical decisions.
Focus on people and the process: A data intelligence platform is a cultural change. You must invest time and efforts in change management. Name data champions within different commercial units, establish clear governance roles and provide continuous training. Technology is the tool, but your employees are those who will lead its success.
Governance from the first day: Do not let your data are getting ahead of your governance. Implement a solution that applies your existing security policies from the start. This proactive approach guarantees that data is always protected and reduce risks.
Strategic partnerships are essential: Technology alone is not enough.
“Our partnership with Alation was an essential element of our success, in particular with the inherited data structures that do not always work with ready -to -use configurations,” said Lahouasnia. “It was incredibly useful to work with a partner who guided us through our own data and made recommendations on how the best AI agents could work with.”
