Propelled by the large, unreliable state of data and information, Salesforce is debuting Tableau Next, a flexible, API-first analytics experience paired with agentic analytics that enriches data discovery and interaction. Aiming to strike the balance between rapid access to data and enhanced data literacy and comprehension, Tableau Next leverages the power of AI and agentic analytics to transform the entire data-to-action workflow.
“The need for… near real-time or real-time analytics has only increased over time,” explained Southard Jones, CPO of Tableau. “We've surveyed over 500 business leaders, and we asked them some questions about, ‘Are they feeling pressure to prove value with data?’ And…three quarters of them feel [that] pressure…Even more importantly, 85% say they need to find those insights in 30 minutes…We've seen that timeline get shorter and shorter over time.”
These increasingly short windows are at odds with the ever-important need to be confident in the data being accessed: According to Salesforce’s survey, 54% of business leaders aren’t sure they can find, analyze, and interpret data on their own, yet 86% believe that their career trajectories depend on their data literacy.
With the confidence gap growing—further compounded by the need for near real-time and real-time analytics—Tableau Next introduces the idea of agentic analytics, or the ability for an agent or a piece of software to look at data and allow end-users to ask questions and get answers based on that data and its capacity to reason—not simply deliver a rules-based response.
“In the past, you're always able to ask questions of your data with BI…now you actually have something that can reason for you,” added Jones.
Tableau Next, through the power of agentic analytics, the Salesforce platform, and Data Cloud, can:
- Automate repetitive tasks, such as data cleaning, transformation, and visualization generation, as well as the execution of complex, multi-step analytics workflows, building upon Tableau’s strength in simplifying complex data for users
- Proactively and rapidly deliver more comprehensive insights by autonomously detecting hidden correlations, outliers, and trends that may be missed by a human observer
- Drive more contextual and effective action with natural language summaries, visualizations, and data-driven recommendations
- Equip humans and AI agents with pre-built analytical skills through a native integration with Agentforce, enabling enterprises to quickly transform data into tangible business value
These capabilities are driven through four robust layers, which include:
- Open Data Layer: A completely open data access layer that affords access to all data—including unstructured data and streaming data—regardless of where it lives, without having to migrate it, driving speed and flexibility.
- AI Semantic Layer: The bridge between raw data and business conversations that enables users to ask questions of the data.
- API-First Composable Visualizations Layer: Building from Tableau’s rich history in driving data comprehension through visualizations, this layer makes visualizations composable and modular, allowing them to be placed in a diverse range of workflows—without needing to search for them.
- Integrated Action Layer: Ties every insight directly to an action, elevating traditional BI to automatically make insights actionable within the workflow.
At its core, Tableau Next seeks to bring users closer to their data, enhancing decision making while establishing a foundation of trustworthy, intuitive, and easily accessible data.
As Ryan Aytay, CEO of Tableau, put it, “Tableau Next helps businesses achieve faster, more impactful results with their data. We’re shifting from basic reports to a world where AI is a collaborative decision-making partner. By combining AI agents with trusted data and easy-to-use tools, we’re making data accessible to everyone and transforming the data-to-action process into an automated, proactive, and insight-driven cycle. This empowers users to improve decision-making, boost efficiency, and manage risk more effectively.”
To learn more about Tableau Next, please visit https://www.salesforce.com/.