Automated Insights: The Pioneer in Delivering Natural language Generation Technology to the Masses

Automated Insights (Ai) is the creator of the world's first self-service natural language generation (NLG) platform, Wordsmith. Natural language generation, a subset of artificial intelligence, transforms structured data into clear, insightful narratives. With Wordsmith's role-based reporting, businesses are able to deliver the right insight, to the right person in real time using the simplest medium to understand: the written word.

Automated Insights was established in 2007 and headquartered in Durham, N.C. In 2015, the company was acquired by Vista Equity Partners, a $30B+ private equity firm, making it the first natural language generation company acquired by a private equity firm.

The company is moving forward with a mission to make the world's data understandable. Automated Insights was founded primarily with a sports industry focus, generating sporting event recaps and personalized fantasy football narratives, before soon realizing that there was a deep need for this type of technology across various industries. Automated Insights now serves clients and partners spanning over 50 industries in more than 20 different languages. Its goal is to empower organizations and individuals with the ability to make faster, more efficient business decisions, regardless of their level of expertise or position within the company.

A Passionate Leader with a Zeal to Excel

Marc Zionts, the CEO of Automated Insights, is a technology executive and entrepreneur who has been successfully leading and growing companies since 1987. He earned both his bachelor's and master's degree in management from the Georgia Institute of Technology and remains active at Georgia Tech as an Alumni Mentor. Zionts is passionate about working with emerging technology, introducing it to the market, and maximizing businesses commercially to drive value and further innovation. As CEO of Automated Insights, he is building upon the established foundation to unlock exponential growth and technology developments. Zionts is also an Independent Board Director for Pivot 3, TEOCO, a TA Associates portfolio company, and Friends of the Earth, a Washington D.C. based environmental group.

Significant Contribution to the Big Data Analytics Industry

Automated Insights bridges the gap between the world of Big Data Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) through NLG, which transforms large, structured datasets into human-sounding written analyses. Automated Insights' Wordsmith authors data storytelling to reveal trends and provide role-based prescriptive reporting to make better decisions in real-time with otherwise challenging data. Using Ai's platform, clients are given the ability to walk themselves through their data and are given what they need to know and what to do about it. Ai equips organizations with the most essential decision-making tool: an accurate, complete understanding of their data.

Leveraging the Power of Disruptive Technologies

The amount of data the world produces and absorbs is growing exponentially. Disruptive technologies like Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, IoT, and Artificial intelligence aren't just impacting today's innovation, but are the driving force behind innovation. Each of these technologies are interlinked, feeding into each other and pushing each other to new heights. There is a mass amount of information and data being created by the IoT which has revolutionized the way the world consumes data. Because of this rapid growth, cloud computing has been driven due to the sheer volume and speed of information by the IoT. Artificial intelligence is being applied to a multitude of technologies to quickly enable the processing of Big Data Analytics, IoT, and Cloud Computing which drives better decision-making on all fronts, regardless of the industry.

Industry Driven Partnerships

Automated Insights' Wordsmith offers unparalleled customizability to empower companies with the capability to take complete control of the output, weave a cohesive story based on the entirety of their data, and ensure insights are more accessible and easily shared within an organization. Being the first to offer a self-service platform brings immense value to its clients and partners and enables them to structure, edit, and generate data-driven narratives without reliance on an outside analyst to provide insights. Key involvements that have helped drive the company's innovation are Automated Insights' business intelligence partners, including Tableau, MicroStrategy, TIBCO, Qlik, Interworks and more.

Awards for Brilliance

Automated Insights is proud to be at the forefront of natural language generation, pioneering the world's first self-service NLG platform. As a company comprised of driven innovators, its team and clients are top priority. Ai is honoured to be recognized as one of Triangle Business Journal's "Best Places to Work," for five years, in addition to being named one of 2018's Most Promising Business Intelligence Solution Providers by CIO Review. Below is the feedback from one of its clients, NVIDIA, which deploys Wordsmith to augment marketing analytics directly inside their Tableau dashboard. NVIDIA found it essential to arm everyone with the tools to confidently make rapid business decisions. As LaSandra Brill, Head of Digital Planning and Insights at NVIDIA says,

"Automated Insights' Wordsmith has completely changed how our team interacts with Tableau. We can now ask the most pertinent questions directly within Tableau and receive real-time analysis from Wordsmith."

Challenges in the Evolving Industry

The current state of the data science industry leaves unlimited potential for growth and NLG is still a relatively unsaturated market. One of the biggest tasks the company faced was deploying emerging technology in such a new market with little historical insight. The technology industry is challenging in the best way because it is always evolving, it is always progressing, and companies are always working diligently to lead in innovation. The driving questions of who, what, why, how, and when are constantly in a changing state. The company is forever learning and re-learning about its audience, where Automated Insights fits best into the market, and how it can improve its services.

Future Path to Success

More companies are realizing the possibilities automated technology has for their organization and many early-adaptors are already seeing the fruit automation has produced. The company has seen a massive rise in interest around business intelligence, especially with the adoption of NLG platforms, to interpret data for better decision-making. Whether generating concise summaries of internal and operational business data, personalizing content for customers, vendors and clients, publishing content at scale or pulling key insights around competitive sales analysis, there are countless opportunities in which written analysis aids in understanding and decision-making across an enterprise. Automated Insights is focused on growing its product development offerings, fostering existing BI and system integrator partners, establishing new, enduring partnerships, and helping make the world's data understandable one organization at a time.