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Unit 2.5 - AI in ASK BOSCO® Basics

Welcome to your guide on leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) within ASK BOSCO®.

In this module we will cover:

  1. Understanding ASK BOSCO®'s AI
  2. Best Practices for Using AI in Data Analytics
  3. Using ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst
  4. ASK BOSCO® AI Highlights
  5. Seeking Support
  6. Knowledge Check

Introduction 

This module is designed for users new to AI, aiming to enhance your data analysis experience. ASK BOSCO® integrates AI to simplify data exploration, making it more intuitive and efficient. Below are some fundamental points to help you get started.​

Understanding ASK BOSCO®'s AI

How does ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst work?

ASK BOSCO® incorporates AI to assist users in querying data using natural language. 

ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst operates by translating natural language questions into structured queries using a relational search engine. This process, enables ASK BOSCO® to interpret your intent accurately and generate relevant insights. 

The system is designed to learn and adapt over time. As you interact with ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst, providing feedback and corrections, it refines its understanding of the organization's unique business context and terminology.

An Analogy: ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst is Like Google Maps for Your Business Data

Imagine you’re in a new city, and you want to find the best coffee shop. You don’t pull out a paper map—you just open Google Maps, type or speak your question, and it shows you where to go, gives you directions, and even suggests the best-rated places.

ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst  works the same way, but for your company’s data.

  • Instead of a map of streets, it’s looking at a “map” of sales, campaigns, or performance.

  • Instead of learning SQL or Excel formulas, you just type a question like “What was revenue in April?”

  • ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst then navigates through your business data and shows you the best “route” to the answer—charts, tables or insights.

Who can query my data?

All ASK BOSCO® AI is closed-source meaning it is secure and not publicly available. 

The AI is only trained only on your datasets and that does not inform any other data training in ASK BOSCO®.

It can only be accessed via the platform by the users that have been set up. Our technical and customer support teams are also able to access your account as required to support you.

What else should I be aware of?

As ASK BOSCO® AI only works with your data, it cannot "see beyond" that data. If you require other data sets to be connected to ASK BOSCO®, to enhance the analysis, this may be possible. Please speak to a member of the Customer Success Team.

As with all AI, the ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst requires human verification. Due to the probabilistic nature of AI generated answers, they can sometimes be inaccurate or require an overlay of human context.

Think of ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst as a virtual data analyst that's always available to answer your questions about business data. Instead of writing complex queries or waiting for reports, you can simply ask ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst questions like, "Why did sales drop last quarter?" or "What are the top-performing products this month?" It interprets your questions, analyzes the data, and provides clear, actionable insights.

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Best Practices for Using AI in Data Analytics

When incorporating AI into your data analysis it is helpful to:

  • Define Clear Objectives: Establish what you aim to achieve with AI to ensure alignment with your business goals.​
  • Use accurate Data Sources: Ensure your data is accurate and up-to-date, as AI-driven analytics rely heavily on high-quality data.​
  • Collaborate with AI Responsibly: While AI enhances data analysis, it's essential to validate AI-generated insights with human judgment. Use AI as a supportive time-saving tool, not a sole decision-maker.​ ​
  • Maintain Continuous Learning : Regularly update your knowledge and skills to effectively utilize new features and improvements within ASK BOSCO®.​

By remembering these foundational aspects, you'll be well-equipped to harness the power of AI in ASK BOSCO®, leading to more insightful and efficient data analysis.

Best Practices when asking questions in ASK BOSCO AI Analyst

When working with ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst there are a few principles to apply:

  • Choose the Correct Data Source: Your data is built up of a number of data models, get familiar with them and select the source that is relevant to your query.​

  • Start with Clear, Specific Questions: While ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst can handle complex queries, beginning with straightforward questions helps ensure accurate results.

  • Provide Feedback: Engaging with AI Analyst human-in-the-loop feedback mechanism helps improve the system's accuracy and relevance over time. 

  • Understand Its Capabilities: AI Analyst excels at analyzing structured data and providing insights based on existing datasets. It's most effective when used for data exploration and trend analysis.

A fuller guide - Best Practice Guide: How to ask the right questions in ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst is available, as well as more detailed guides

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ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst

Let's take a look at your dedicated AI analyst, in ASK BOSCO®, in action

A demo can be viewed here, or read on for a step by step guide.

ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst lets you ask business questions in natural language to deliver reliable answers in an intuitive conversational experience.

You can access the ASK BOSCO AI Analyst from the Reporting Menu and from the visualizations in any Dashboard.

We'll show you more about visualizations in Dashboards in a future Article, so for now let's start by accessing the AI Analyst from the Reporting Menu.

 

Choosing data sources

Before using ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst you will want to ensure the correct data source is selected. The data source is shown above the search bar.

By Clicking on this, you are presented with all the data sets available.

Select the data set you would like to work with from the select data source dialogue box.

You can also see a description of each data set when you click on it.

Note that only data sources with the ASK BOSCO® icon next to them, are ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst enabled.

ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst has returned an answer that only contains the data relevant to the question.

If you want to understand the overall data in the data source you can use the Preview data option to look at a sample of the columns of data available.

This can help guide you on any follow up questions you may wish to ask.

Note that if you continue asking questions in the same thread ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst treats each question as a follow up to the previous.

 

Starting a conversation

To start a conversation all we need to do is submit a question or request in the search bar. Let's ask what were the best performing Channels last month?

Then we can press the enter or return key or click the send button.

It generates an answer to our question immediately.

Note that, in this example, although “best performing” is a somewhat ambiguous statement, ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst interprets this to refer to top revenue drivers and their relative Conversion Rate and ROAS and sorts by Revenue from highest to lowest. 

 

Understand how ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst reached an answer

ASK BOSCO® AI Analyst translated the question into keyword-based search tokens, allowing you to easily verify the generated answer.

You can hover over search tokens to learn more about each.

In this example we can hover over the last month date token to see a brief explanation of the filter and its values.

We can hover over the attribute token Channel to see a description and sample values of it.

If we click on more details from the attribute pane, we can see column statistics, such as how many unique values exist, data type and source.

The search tokens and the details that appear, on hover, gives us full transparency into the query, including the attributes, measures, formulas and filters used to construct the answer.

You can toggle the display between chart and table easily by clicking the chart icon.

 

Continuing the conversation

You can go on to ask follow up questions that drill down, or expand, on the answer that has been provided.

Here asking "What was the Revenue by day last month?" provides that data in a new table.

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ASK BOSCO® AI Highlights

Interpreting AI Highlights

AI Highlights appear in some dashboards.

AI Highlights uses ASK BOSCO®'s change analysis feature to generate the top change contributor’s insights. 

They relate to KPI charts that are present in the Dashboard and offer quick insights into how top metrics have changed within your reports. By focusing on significant changes, this feature helps you identify and understand key trends in your data promptly.

You can run AI Highlights on individual tabs in your Dashboard. Just switch to a different Dashboard tab, and click the AI Highlights button to generate highlights for the selected tab.

AI Highlights generating

When the highlights are ready, click View AI Highlights.

The AI Highlights window opens and displays a summary of the changes in your KPIs.

The information is organized into expected and unexpected changes based on the confidence band that’s generated using ASK BOSCO®'s anomaly detection.. If your KPI value goes outside the bounds, it’s classified as an unexpected change. If it doesn’t, it’s classified as an expected change.

To get more detail about a KPI change, click the card associated with the change, and the window expands to provide more information.

Sometimes, some of the attributes listed may not be relevant. If you find this to be your experience and to get insights for only relevant attributes please speak to the Customer Success Team.

The following are current limitations of AI Highlights:

  • AI Highlights are only generated for time-series KPI charts.

  • Only the first five time-series KPIs are displayed in AI Highlights.

  • AI Highlights are calculated at the tab level in a Dashboard

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Seeking Support

If you encounter challenges while using AI features in ASK BOSCO®, don't hesitate to seek assistance from ASK BOSCO®'s customer support. They can be reached via email team@askbosco.io

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Knowledge Check

 

Previous - Unit 2.4 Customizing Dashboards

Next - Unit 3.1 Budget Planner Overview