Salesforce is integrating more AI features into Tableau to make it more competitive with chatbot services such as ChatGPT.

Tableau is a business intelligence platform that the cloud giant obtained in 2019 through a $15.7 billion acquisition. It allows users to turn dense business data into graphs that are easier to understand. A retail chain, for example, can overlay sales numbers from its store locations on a map to ease revenue analysis. More standard graph types such as pie and bar charts are supported as well.

Since Salesforce acquired Tableau, generative AI providers such as OpenAI have moved into the data visualization market. ChatGPT allows users to upload large datasets, turn them into graphs and ask natural language questions. Anthropic, OpenAI’s best-funded startup competitor, added similar features to its Claude chatbot late last year.

The new AI capabilities that Salesforce is incorporating into Tableau will enable it to more directly take on those chatbot services. The features are rolling out under the brand Tableau Next. According to Salesforce, the feature bundle is powered by its Data Cloud data management platform and a collection of AI agents. An AI agent is a language model that has been customized to perform a relatively narrow set of tasks with a high degree of autonomy.

When enterprise software vendors announce a significant product update, the value proposition often has a partner-powered component. In some cases, that component takes the form of implementation services from a consulting partner. In other situations, the vendor might team up with another software maker to build integrations that make its new product update more useful. Boardroom Insight caught up with IBM, one of the first Salesforce partners using Tableau Next, to understand how that dynamic is playing out in the context of the new AI feature suite.

“Salesforce’s Data Cloud and IBM’s integrations allow clients to securely access data from systems like SAP and mainframes—without needing to move or copy it,” Mary Rowe, the global head of IBM Consulting’s Salesforce Practice, told Boardroom Insight. “This means they are able to analyze data in real time using tools like Tableau Next and trigger AI-powered actions through Slack. Through IBM Data Gate for watsonx, our clients can connect legacy systems directly to modern BI and AI tools, without compromising governance, security, or performance.”

The first business intelligence task that Tableau Next promises to ease is data preparation. Before analysts can turn the latest quarterly sales numbers into a dashboard for the CFO, they have to ensure that the numbers are accurate. Data preparation is the process of removing accuracy issues from a dataset before it’s analyzed or turned into a graph. The term also encompasses certain related tasks, such as enriching information with details from other sources.

According to Salesforce, Tableau Next can generate suggestions on how users should go about preparing a dataset. That removes the need to manually sift through the platform’s documentation for guidance. In some cases, Tableau Next can not only provide advice but also automatically carry out the tasks it recommends.

Another Tableau Next feature, Concierge, allows users to ask natural language questions about their data. That removes the need to write SQL queries or manually click through the settings of a dashboard, which saves time.

Rounding out the Tableau Next feature set is a third capability called Inspector. It’s designed to notify workers about noteworthy changes in their data. An e-commerce company’s sales team, for example, could have Inspector generate an alert when there’s a sudden increase in large orders. 

One of the factors driving demand for AI-powered analytics tools is that enterprises are collecting a growing amount of information about their business operations. “Companies aren’t struggling to gather data, in fact, they are often inundated with it,” IBM’s Rowe explained. “Our 2024-2025 State of Salesforce report shows that while 97% of Salesforce customers collect diverse types of data, only 24% are leveraging it to transform customer experiences. The real challenge is finding data value in a way that is scalable, cost-effective, and drives meaningful business outcomes.”

“By combining Salesforce’s robust cloud infrastructure with IBM’s legacy of consulting expertise, our partnership is instrumental in enabling businesses to tackle this challenge,” Rowe said.

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