What you missed at
Qonnections 2018

AI – really like what we see

The new cognitive capabilities or “Unleashing the Beast” as Elif Tutuk (Qlik Research Director) refers to it, looks really promising. Qlik uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to learn from the user and the data and with the new cognitive capabilities, the users will get help in many ways. To me, this is the most exciting thing that has happened in BI in a long time, this will truly change the way we use Qlik Sense, and we’ve only seen the beginning.

• When creating the data model, Qlik guides with Association Recommendations based on the data using not only the classic field names but also the actual data.
• When creating visualizations, the new Qlik Insight Advisor displays suggestions based on the actual data and insights found within the data. Not only within the associated data but as a new way of finding insights within the unassociated data, the unique Qlik Power of Grey is getting a revival.
  They are closing in on Natural Language Queries (NLQ) here as well. I’ve played with the Insight Advisor in a beta for the June 2018 release and I really like what I see.
• When looking at KPI trends and trying to understand the cause, the key drivers, just ask Qlik for the key drivers for the specific KPI and you’ll be presented with the top positive and negative causes for the trend.

With the new capabilities, Self-Service possibilities in Qlik have really improved. The user does not need to know all the coding as Qlik assists with their Accelerated Self-service.

Studies show that with Artificial Intelligence comes better predictions, but also a growing importance of data to feed the system with. Professor Ajay Agrawal, Rotman School of Management, adds to that the growing importance of its complements, the human judgments and actions. The Artificial Intelligence should do the crunching of data to show the facts and predictions but let humans add to that their judgment and take the actions. We often talk about using fact-based decision making instead of gut feeling, but I’m thinking that we should to some extent use gut feelings but make sure that they are well-informed gut feelings. This is where Qlik is on the right track with Augmented Intelligence, that puts the user at the center of the decision making.

Qlik takes the lead in Data Literacy

This year Data Literacy – the ability to Read, Work, Analyse and Argue with the data – was a key topic with many sessions both on main stage and breakouts. Unfortunately, the subject is a bit fluffy and I think they need to be even more concrete on what and how to increase the level of Data Literacy. Qlik has a lot of free material online in QCC that’s good, but I would like to see even more practical and hands on guides.

I’m really pleased that Qlik are taking the lead on Data Literacy. I’ve talked a lot about how to make sure the design of the Qlik solutions helps the users understand their business with the available data. Up to now that has often been the most important task for the BI developers, but with improved Self Service capabilities that will change. The importance for the users to be Data Literate is growing, when the users design part of the solutions themselves. There is a saying that ‘With statistics you can prove almost anything’ and we must help the users to understand what they are really looking at and to challenge the result of the analysis.

In my interview with Dan Sommer you can hear his takes on how Data Literacy and AI will together improve the value of using Qlik.