Oracle Introduces New App Analytics Platform, Enhances Analytics Cloud
At its Oracle CloudWorld conference in Las Vegas this week, Oracle is introducing a range of new analytics capabilities. In addition to its core Oracle Database, MySQL and MySQL HeatWave businesses, Oracle focuses on analytics and applications. As such, the new analytics capabilities it is announcing accrue to both its Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) platform as well as the value-added functionality for Oracle applications that run atop that platform.
A Full Data Intelligence Platform
It’s with respect to the latter that Oracle is announcing the new Fusion Data Intelligence Platform. This new service is an evolution of the Fusion Analytics platform that preceded it, but in addition to Fusion Analytics’ semantic models that are defined and materialized in Oracle Analytics Cloud, the new service includes 360-degree data models, analytic artifacts, AI and BI models and pre-built intelligent apps.
Those pre-built apps bring in data models, ML models and analytics, designed to be accessible to people who don’t currently use self-service BI, and prefer to stay a level of abstraction above it. Oracle demoed a “Supply Chain Command Center” application as an example. It was a full-blown browser-based application with BI and AI capabilities already implemented and built in.
External Data too, All in the Lakehouse
Like Fusion Analytics, Fusion Data Intelligence Platform is not an island. For example, it will allow the addition of external data and will link to the likes of Salesforce, LinkedIn, and other external services with business-relevant data. On the Oracle applications side, Fusion Data Intelligence Platform will tie into Oracle Netsuite, Oracle Health and Oracle Industries applications. Fusion Data Intelligence Platform also integrates with, and includes an instance of, OAC, which Fusion Analytics did as well.
All data will land in a single Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) data lakehouse with a semantic model, ML models, etc. and OAC tie-ins. Though the lakehouse will feature a single model, it will be broken into multiple “subject areas” for specific target audiences.
OAC Gets AI
It’s not only at the Fusion Data Intelligence Platform level where Oracle has added AI capabilities. After all, Fusion Data Analytics Platform is a layer above OAC, where Oracle has added AI capabilities as well.
OAC now has an Analytics Assistant, offering a chatbot interface on your data, with links to public data via ChatGPT. In partnership with Synthesia, the Assistant features avatars that can act as “news readers” to deliver data stories verbally to business decision-makers.
AI-Powered Document Understanding can scan JPEG and PDF files — and extract values and context. One example mentioned by Oracle, for applying this in practice, was the reading of individual receipt images to ensure their totals match the data in expense reports.
Narratives, Teams Integration, and the Business User Strategy
Contextual Insights implements natural language generation to provide narratives of users’ data. It’s similar in concept to Power BI’s Smart Narratives and Data Stories/narratives in Tableau. OAC now also integrates with Microsoft Teams, letting users bring OAC dashboards, visualizations, and insights into Teams channel chats. The functionality provided is similar to the previously introduced integration of OAC with Slack.
The range of capabilities added to Oracle’s Analytics platform should greatly benefit Oracle Applications customers. While customers might think of Power BI or Tableau when the subject of analytics comes up, Oracle is making it unnecessary to bring in third-party platforms when it comes to AI- and BI-driven insights on its applications’ data. Its goal is to go beyond self-service analytics and instead just surface analytics capabilities in business users’ tools. Clearly, Oracle is delivering in that area.