[AI and the Modern Data Stack] #181 Why the Future of AI in Data will be Weird with Benn Stancil, CTO at Mode & Field CTO at ThoughtSpot

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Feb 19, 2024

In this engaging discussion with Benn Stancil, the Field CTO at ThoughtSpot and former Co-Founder of Mode Analytics, listeners explore the surprising applications of generative AI in data workflows. Benn highlights how AI-assisted data tasks have emerged as vital tools, transforming traditional analytics. He envisions a future where analytics not only leverages generative AI for problem-solving but also integrates qualitative insights over quantitative data. The conversation pushes the boundaries of how organizations can revolutionize decision-making through innovative applications of AI.

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INSIGHT

AI's Unpredictable Future

Foundational tech shifts teleport us to unforeseen places, making it hard to predict the future.
Like the iPhone enabled TikTok, AI will birth surprising applications beyond chatbots.

INSIGHT

LLMs: Creative, Not Precise

LLMs are creative and human-like, excelling at unexpected things, not precise instructions.
Treat them like humans: give more information, feedback, and context for better results.

ANECDOTE

LLMs as Copilots, Not Assistants

Current LLM "data assistants" struggle with complex real-world data and business questions.
They're better as coding copilots, helping translate pseudocode into SQL queries for analysts.

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One of the biggest surprises of the generative AI revolution over the past 2 years lies in the counter-intuitiveness of its most successful use cases. Counter to most predictions made about AI years ago, AI-assisted coding, specifically AI-assisted data work, has been surprisingly one of the biggest killer apps of generative AI tools and copilots. However, what happens when we take this notion even further? How will analytics workflows look like when generative AI tools can also assist us in problem-solving? What type of analytics use cases can we expect to operationalize, and what tools can we expect to work with when AI systems can provide scalable qualitative data instead of relying on imperfect quantitative proxies? Today’s guest calls this future “weird”.

Benn Stancil is the Field CTO at ThoughtSpot. He joined ThoughtSpot in 2023 as part of its acquisition of Mode, where he was a Co-Founder and CTO. While at Mode, Benn held roles leading Mode’s data, product, marketing, and executive teams. He regularly writes about data and technology at benn.substack.com. Prior to founding Mode, Benn worked on analytics teams at Microsoft and Yammer.

Throughout the episode, Benn and Adel talk about the nature of AI-assisted analytics workflows, the potential for generative AI in assisting problem-solving, how he imagines analytics workflows to look in the future, and a lot more.

About the AI and the Modern Data Stack DataFramed Series

This week we’re releasing 4 episodes focused on how AI is changing the modern data stack and the analytics profession at large. The modern data stack is often an ambiguous and all-encompassing term, so we intentionally wanted to cover the impact of AI on the modern data stack from different angles. Here’s what you can expect:

Why the Future of AI in Data will be Weird with Benn Stancil, CTO at Mode & Field CTO at ThoughtSpot — Covering how AI will change analytics workflows and tools
How Databricks is Transforming Data Warehousing and AI with Ari Kaplan, Head Evangelist & Robin Sutara, Field CTO at Databricks — Covering Databricks, data intelligence and how AI tools are changing data democratization
Adding AI to the Data Warehouse with Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO at Snowflake — Covering Snowflake and its uses, how generative AI is changing the attitudes of leaders towards data, and how to improve your data management
Accelerating AI Workflows with Nuri Cankaya, VP of AI Marketing & La Tiffaney Santucci, AI Marketing Director at Intel — Covering AI’s impact on marketing analytics, how AI is being integrated into existing products, and the democratization of AI

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