Imagine being able to ask your data a question like you would a Data Analyst and receive an instant, clear and precise answer. With Ask by Devoteam, this vision becomes reality.
No more endless reporting and back-and-forth with data teams. Based on Snowflake’s Cortex Analyst, Ask by Devoteam revolutionizes data access by making your company’s data accessible and analysis instantaneous and intuitive for all employees, whether they are data specialists or not.
A new era is dawning for data: simplicity, autonomy and efficiency.
Data democratization: still a crucial issue
Despite the abundance of data, access to it paradoxically remains one of the biggest challenges for companies. However, massive investments in infrastructure and talent have not solved the often cumbersome and time-consuming processes.
The observation is simple:
- Numerous rigid or often overly complex reports
- Overloaded data teams, unable to respond quickly to business requests
- Users who no longer find their way through the maze of available data
In response to this challenge, Devoteam developed Ask, an innovative solution that reinvents access to data for everyone.
A natural and intuitive interface
The idea behind Ask by Devoteam is simple: allow each user to ask questions of their data as they would a Data Analyst
Alix Uda
Product Owner at Devoteam
A concrete example: a sales manager can ask, “What is my quote conversion rate by region this quarter?” and get an immediate, precise, actionable answer.
Behind this simplicity lies cutting-edge technology. Ask by Devoteam is based on two main pillars :
- A sophisticated API engine that transforms natural language into precise SQL queries: Snowflake Cortex Analyst
- A semantic layer that enables AI to understand the context and meaning of data truly and acts as an intelligent translator between users and the enterprise data estate.
A user experience at the heart of innovation
Devoteam teams placed the user experience at the heart of their approach. “We knew that technology would not be enough,” continues Alix. “We had to create a truly fluid and intuitive experience.”
Structuring choices for the user experience :
- Refine responses with an intelligent chatbot that retains the context of conversations
- Explore data intuitively with an interactive sidebar
- Make adoption easier with popular questions and a bookmarking system to share and learn quickly
- Optimize responses with continuous feedback that improves their relevance
- Guide the user with an intelligent clarification system to remove any ambiguity
Performance and precision: the technical challenge
One of the biggest challenges was ensuring fast and accurate responses. “In the professional world, every second counts,” Alix emphasizes. “We optimized every aspect of the solution to ensure near-instantaneous responses while maintaining absolute accuracy.”
Semantics play a key role in every company. Terms like “turnover” or “margin ” often have multiple interpretations. Upstream work with business lines and management committees is essential to align definitions and ensure consistent data use.
The deployment of a solution like Ask quickly affects all company employees who, within different departments, find themselves using different names for the same data or the opposite, namely, the same name for different data.
This is where the upstream work of creating the semantic layer and the disambiguation algorithm come in. The latter will allow the user to be re-questioned about using the correct KPI.
The Future of Data Access
Devoteam’s ambitions don’t stop there. Several developments are already in preparation for Ask:
- Voice integration to ask data a question as simply as saying ‘Ok Google’ or ‘Hey Siri’, but tailored to business needs
- Connecting to collaborative tools like Teams and Slack to integrate Ask into users’ daily lives
- Advanced visualizations, with automatic graphs generated for instant understanding of results.
Concrete evidence from customers
Saint Gobain Bâtiment Distribution France (the Retail activity of the Saint Gobain Group) testifies here that demand and reception from users are immediately very strong, and the services provided by this solution are immediately understood.
A revolution in progress
Ask is more than just a technological innovation. It’s a new way of thinking about data access in the enterprise. By making data truly accessible to everyone, Ask helps create more agile and more efficient organizations.
In a world where decisions must be based on facts, solutions like Ask pave the way for a genuine democratization of access to data. A silent but profound revolution that could well redefine our relationship with data in the years to come.
Ask is already transforming the businesses that adopt it. Are you ready to reinvent your data access?
“The future belongs to solutions that make accessing data as natural as conversation,” concludes Alix. A future that, thanks to innovations like Ask by Devoteam, seems closer than ever.