As Entrinsik’s Chief Product Officer, I’ve had the privilege of steering the development of Informer AI Assistants, an initiative sparked a year and a half ago by our CEO, Brad Leupen. This ambitious, new product uses artificial intelligence to transform how users engage with Informer, Entrinsik’s data reporting and analytics software.
By last summer, Brad and Vice President of Informer Engineering Andrea Vega led our team in developing early versions of Informer AI. We couldn’t wait to reveal it at our user conference, Entrinsicon, last September (2023).
We were elated at the enthusiasm and excitement that ensued! Customers immediately grasped how they could seamlessly use Informer AI to accelerate their work and extract insights from their data. This underscored the transformative potential of this innovation.
Our work was just beginning.
The Early phase of Informer AI
Soon after Entrinsicon, members of our Informer Advisory Council (IAC) – a customer user group - became our initial Informer AI Pilot sites. Their feedback identified key improvement areas for user interaction and for sharpening communication between the user and AI. We also gained insight into the ways customers foresee using Informer AI and the potential that lay ahead. They wanted to leverage the data inside Informer to answer targeted questions outside of Informer.
This is when the idea of Informer AI Assistants was born! We didn’t want to be just another AI chatbot. We had bigger ideas.
Informer AI Assistants lead the way
We engineered Informer AI Assistants to be intentional, loaded with specific knowledge, skilled for the objective at hand, and grounded by Informer’s adherence to Data Governance. Thus, an AI Assistant has targeted secure conversations and capabilities, which mitigates the effects of hallucinations that plague general AI. Customers can create an expert AI Assistant for every purpose!
We added more Pilot sites and began partnering with all Pilot sites to create AI Assistants for their real-world use cases. They were building AI Assistants for targeted constituents that even surpassed our ideas like an AI Assistant integrated with Microsoft Teams, Insurance Policy Comparison Assistant, Alumni Giving Assistant. just to name a few. We refined AI within Informer and carved it out as one such AI Assistant - the Informer Copilot - to reduce manual tasks, accelerate content creation, and elevate technical skills like writing JavaScript in an instant.
In all, AI Assistants empower users to fully use organizational data by simplifying complex tasks, answering user queries, and offering actionable insights. Already, our Pilot sites are using AI Assistants to not only serve up information and do analysis, but also to brainstorm and strategize. And the most exciting part? This is all impacting their bottom line in savings of time and money!
What lies ahead with Informer AI Assistants
As we continue to develop Informer AI Assistants, we envision users conversing with different AI Assistants as routinely as they do with coworkers and taking immediate action from within an AI Assistant. We see students using an Informer AI Assistant as their go-to for navigating their academic pursuits - from finding out what courses they still need to take, to helping them study for a Chemistry test. The potential we have in supporting a student’s path is particularly exciting to me as a mom!
Our journey is just beginning as we strive to empower customers to harness the power of AI to make the most informed decisions supported by robust and secure data. We are committed to learning from customer feedback and regularly enhancing our offerings. I'm genuinely excited about the impact Informer AI Assistants will have on customers' daily work and the transformative effect it will have for their organizations.
I invite you to plug an AI Assistant up to your data and ask away! See the possibilities for yourself.
