Artificial Intelligence1 min read

Databricks’ new AI agent tells CEO Ali Ghodsi the unvarnished truth

By · Via TechCrunch · Published by Everything Blog

In short

Designed as an always-on operational assistant, the updated Genie agent draws context directly from stored company information using a proprietary ontology. During a demonstration using his own account, chief executive Ali Ghodsi showed the tool evaluating disappointing employee satisfaction surveys and dissecting a failed sales presentation. To prevent autonomous agents from driving up infrastructure expenses, companies can set strict operational boundaries using the Unity Gateway product. Organizations can also cut costs by routing these tasks through lower-cost open-weight models.

Key points

  • The system is pitched to give executives unfiltered operational truth that employees typi…: The system is pitched to give executives unfiltered operational truth that employees typically conceal in companies exceeding Dunbar's number.
  • Leadership can use the tool to evaluate proposed executive remedies against poor internal…: Leadership can use the tool to evaluate proposed executive remedies against poor internal employee satisfaction metrics.
  • Businesses can control automated software spending by applying usage limits through the D…: Businesses can control automated software spending by applying usage limits through the Databricks Unity Gateway.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Databricks on Wednesday unveiled an updated version of its AI agent Genie, which can now perform multi-step jobs that take extended work to finish. It does this through an ontology that Databricks built to give Genie the context it needs from the information that customers store on the Databricks platform.

Corporate leaders can now assign the agent a wide range of tasks, and it will complete them unsupervised, the company says. To prove the point, Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi showed me how he uses it internally. Instead of a product demo, he fired up his actual agent and walked me through his most recent chats and charts.

He showed me how it analyzed the parts of an employee satisfaction survey where the company didn’t score well, and how it helped him rate (and discard) fixes for those low scores that some executives suggested. He showed me how it summarized a big sales pitch to a prospect that went poorly — including the features the prospect said it needed before buying.

It also prepped him for a podcast interview by reviewing…

Artificial Intelligence