The Next Generation of BI: Powered by IBM’s Granite Foundation Models

IBM Cognos Analytics has long been recognized as the gold standard in the world of Business Intelligence. It’s indisputably the most robust, secure, and governance-friendly tool on the market. Renowned for its superior reporting capabilities, Cognos offers an unparalleled level of depth and flexibility for organizations looking to extract valuable insights from their data.

But what many may not know is how Cognos Analytics has seamlessly integrated artificial intelligence to revolutionize the BI experience for users. AI in Cognos not only automates many of the traditionally manual tasks but also enhances decision-making by uncovering hidden insights, predicting future trends, and offering real-time guidance. This article will explore Cognos Analytics’ current AI capabilities and also introduce a vision for the next generation of BI, powered by IBM's Granite Foundation Models.

AI-Powered Features in Cognos Analytics Today

IBM has embedded AI throughout Cognos Analytics to streamline processes, enhance data discovery, and allow users to gain deeper insights with minimal effort. Here are some key features already transforming how businesses use Cognos:

• Automated Data Preparation and Classification: Data preparation can be a tedious and time-consuming task, but Cognos Analytics simplifies this by automating the process. Users can connect to multiple data sources, clean and prepare the data, add calculated fields, and even join datasets—without needing to write complex code. More impressively, Cognos can automatically classify data types, identifying whether columns represent measures, geographic data, or plain text, and then tag them with relevant icons for improved visualization.
• AI-Powered Data Discovery: Cognos Analytics helps users uncover relationships and patterns that might go unnoticed in traditional BI tools. With just a few clicks, you can leverage AI to surface hidden trends and key drivers, allowing you to explore relationships and insights in ways that manual analysis might never reveal.
• AI Assistant for Natural Language Queries: The AI Assistant in Cognos allows users to ask business questions in plain language and get immediate answers. Users can simply type their query, and the assistant will either return an answer or generate a visualization, chart, or even a complete dashboard, all from a natural language interaction.
• AI Insights for Deeper Understanding: Beyond visualization, Cognos uses AI to generate valuable natural language insights directly from your data. These insights help users fully understand their data.
• Forecasting for Future Decision-Making: Cognos Analytics also includes powerful forecasting capabilities, allowing users to make informed decisions based on predictive insights. By analyzing historical data, Cognos can identify trends and provide forecasts, empowering businesses to prepare for future challenges and opportunities.

How IBM Granite Models Will Disrupt the BI Market?

While Cognos Analytics already offers powerful AI features, the future of BI is set to be transformed by a new vision powered by IBM's Granite Foundation Models. This new approach will bring an even more intelligent, intuitive, and adaptive BI experience. Here's a look at some highlights of what is coming.

1. Conversational, Zero Learning Curve Experience

BI will be simpler and more accessible than ever. The vision of BI is a world where business users don’t need to undergo extensive training or possess deep data expertise. Instead, they’ll simply interact with a conversational assistant, asking questions in natural language and receiving immediate, relevant answers. No more complex interfaces—just seamless, intuitive conversations with data.

2. AI-Powered Business Advisor

The future of BI empowers users by providing them with an AI-powered business advisor that acts as a true partner in data-driven decision-making. BI will not be limited to BI specialists anymore, this assistant will help users who might not know exactly what to ask or how to interpret complex data scenarios.

• If users are unsure of what to ask, the assistant will proactively suggest relevant questions based on the business context.
• When users are unclear about the meaning of certain trends or results, the assistant will provide insights in simple, natural language.
• For forecasting, the assistant will generate trend analyses and predictions, offering actionable insights to help users anticipate future outcomes.
• Additionally, if a trend is identified, the assistant will explain what is driving that trend, providing context on contributing factors, key drivers and offering potential actions users can take to influence the outcome.

The assistant will offer descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, making BI accessible and actionable for everyone—whether they are a business executive, marketing manager, or finance professional.

3. Intelligent Metrics and Alerts

Users will have the ability to define metrics and key performance indicators that matter most to them and monitor these in real-time. Alerts will notify when thresholds are crossed or specific triggers are met, ensuring that critical changes are always caught early. Users can track these metrics visually or receive updates automatically, enabling faster, more informed decision-making.

4. Adaptability for Every User

BI solutions often force users to adapt to their platforms, but the next generation of BI will adapt to users. The new AI assistant will be capable of understanding business language, writing nuances, and the user's preferred way to ask. Whether users want to explore data, narrow the scope of their queries to a specific context, or integrate BI into collaborative tools they use in their routine, the assistant will provide a personalized and fluid experience.

5. Trust and Explainability: AI You Can Rely On

One of the greatest concerns surrounding AI is trust, especially in critical business decisions. IBM is addressing this concern head-on. The new assistant will leverage the rigorously trained IBM Granite Models, adhering to stringent standards for data privacy and compliance. Importantly, the assistant will only provide insights based on certified company data and metrics, ensuring that responses are grounded in fact, not general AI knowledge. Users will also have access to a detailed explanation of how the AI reached its conclusions, ensuring transparency and accountability.

6. Automated Data Enrichment

For data analysts concerned with the preparation and organization of data, there is also good news: the new AI assistant will automate the data enrichment process. It will analyze data and automatically assign business context, saving analysts countless hours of manual labor and significantly reducing the time to value.

7. Automated Metrics Creation

Even the task of creating metrics and KPIs will be simplified. Less experienced data professionals or those who prefer not to build models manually will be able to use AI to automate this process. With just a few clicks, they’ll select and enrich the data, define their goals, and publish key metrics to a centralized catalog—streamlining BI processes for faster, more effective decision-making.

Conclusion

Cognos Analytics has already positioned itself as the leader in AI-powered BI. But the future is even more exciting. IBM’s vision for BI, powered by its Granite Foundation Models, will augment the current Cognos Analytics Experience, redefining how businesses interact with their data, making BI more conversational, intelligent, and accessible than ever before.

With IBM at the forefront, the future of BI will provide an adaptive, trustworthy, and highly efficient experience, fundamentally transforming how organizations make data-driven decisions.