Technology Magazine January 2019 | Page 41

rganisations are et crushed under that data whilst re going to see portunities to hts and make ns ” knowledge workers around the world . But then you ’ ve got to ask yourself : ‘ what needs to happen , what are the capabilities that companies like Tableau need to unlock to enable tens of thousands of users inside a large bank or retailer to use data and analytics ?’” Tableau believes it has found the answer : natural language processing . Manifested in the firm ’ s latest roll-out called Data Ask , this capability uses this technology to allow everyday people to make simple requests from their data using everyday language .

“ We want to make data and analytics evermore intuitive , evermore natural , evermore familiar , to the way that the human brain already works and that ’ s why we ’ re using natural language because it feels natural ,” explains Selipsky . “ Now , instead of learning software and understanding what dimensions and measures are , you can simply type a question , such as : ‘ What are the most expensive housing neighbourhoods in London ?’ Then there ’ s complicated algorithms and sophisticated query parts that goes on in the background , to render a visualisation that is extremely relevant to that question that you asked .” This may seem like simple innovation but the nuts and bolts are highly intricate . To complete this question , the platform needs to understand what
41 www . gigabitmagazine . com