18 October 2024 | 3 minutes of reading time
Cortex Analyst is Snowflake's latest AI tool that simplifies the way we interact with data. This tool allows you to ask questions about your data in plain English. Then Cortex Analyst converts this into SQL queries, executes them automatically and returns you the result. We have tested this tool and are happy to share our first experiences.
We tested the effectiveness of this tool by using Cortex Analyst to analyze the relationship between price and demand. More specifically, the influence of prices on sales.
To conduct this analysis properly, we first devised a clear plan of action, which was to calculate the percentage change in price and percentage change in sales for each type of product and then plot these changes to discover any patterns.
We then got to work testing Cortex Analyst by asking specific questions to extract the data we needed from Snowflake. Thanks to Cortex Analyst's natural language processing, we were able to simply enter these questions in plain English and almost immediately got back the relevant data we needed.
One of the major advantages of the tool is that for each question the corresponding SQL query was generated and displayed. This allowed us to properly check whether the question had been interpreted correctly by Cortex Analyst and make adjustments where necessary.
Of course, we also checked the outcome each time against the actual data in our database to make sure everything was correct.
The downside of using Cortex Analyst is that it is not yet able to extract data from different data sets (read: tables). It is still necessary to create one large data set in advance.
This test shows that Cortex Analyst is a useful tool for users, who want to find quick and useful answers without technical knowledge, without having to delve into complex SQL queries.
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In our initial experience with Cortex Analyst, we noticed the following benefits:
We also ran into some limitations:
Cortex Analyst is a tool that bridges the gap between data analysis and natural language. It enables business users to gain insights faster, more accurately and efficiently without relying on IT specialists or data-science teams. Our initial experiences with the tool are cautiously optimistic. Although there are still some limitations, especially in user experience, Cortex Analyst offers a promising glimpse into the future of AI-driven data analytics within Snowflake. For companies looking to quickly and independently extract value from their data, Cortex Analyst could become a useful tool.
In any case, we will continue to follow closely the developments surrounding Snowflake's Cortex Analyst!
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