Big data analytics company Alteryx Inc. is expanding its platform with support for hybrid data infrastructures as part of its Fall 2024 update, as well as some new artificial intelligence capabilities that make it easier for users to automate insight generation and streamline reporting.

Alteryx sells tools that simplify the process of performing extract, transform and load, or ETL for short, on massive volumes of data, so organizations can prepare that information for analysis. Its flagship platform is called Alteryx Designer, and it provides a wide range of functionality around data cleansing, data mining and geospatial analytics, integrated within a single offering. It also provides baked-in connectivity to leading business intelligence tools such as Experian and Tableau, so companies can deliver their prepared data to wherever it’s needed.

The company explains that modern enterprises are increasingly leaning on hybrid data environments that provide better usability and connectivity between their cloud- and on-premises-based applications and systems. These days, it’s not uncommon for an organization to use multiple data stores and databases, Alteryx explained. That causes challenges around data integration, and companies need a way to gain more control over the data these systems generate, without creating information silos.

To solve this challenge, the Alteryx Cloud Fall 2024 release adds new connectors for services including Google Cloud Storage and SingleStore, making it simple for customers to set up data pipelines that stream information into its platform, where it can be prepared for analysis.

The release also adds support for Analytic Apps in Alteryx Cloud Execution for Desktop, paving the way for companies to integrate data analytics tools with Alteryx’s data preparation capabilities within their Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud environments.

There are AI-based analytics enhancements too. With Magic Reports now in public preview, Alteryx is expanding its data reporting and visualization capabilities with an advanced editor that integrates automated analysis and AI-based intelligence to simplify reporting and deliver automatic insight generation to users. With Magic Reports, users will be able to build and collaborate on dynamic analytics reports and share them across their organization.

A number of customers have already been working with the Magic Reports in early access, including the wireless network operator T-Mobile US.

“Magic Reports looks exciting,” said T-Mobile senior engineer Cesar Picco. “Reporting is so important to analytics initiatives, this kind of innovation has the potential to provide great automation opportunities to analytics teams.”

Elsewhere in the release, there’s a new “Standard Mode” in Alteryx Designer Cloud that offers a more robust selection of data preparation and blending tools for teams working with cloud data. Meanwhile, LiveQuery is a new feature that delivers enhanced integration with cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake and Databricks. It makes it possible to work with information that resides directly within those stores, where customers can benefit from greater privacy, faster processing and reduced egress costs.

Finally, Alteryx has made some improvements to its server application programming interface so users can take more programmatic actions, such as scheduling analytics applications.

Alteryx Senior Vice President of Product Management Jay Henderson said the new updates are all about helping business analysts get results faster. “These AI and productivity features allow them to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time discovering meaningful insights in their data,” he promised.

Image: Alteryx