AnswerRocket is a Gen AI analytics platform that helps business users uncover insights from their enterprise data. Pulse 2.0 interviewed AnswerRocket co-founder Mike Finley to learn more about the company.
Mike Finley’s Background
Finley is an experienced entrepreneur, author, speaker, and patented inventor, holding degrees in Physics, Math, and Computer Science from Transylvania University. And Finley said:
“Previously, I co-founded Qualia Labs, where I helped develop recognized innovations in the field of machine learning and big data. Before that, I built Radiant Systems and led the engineering, product marketing, and technical sales teams for massive retail transaction systems prior to acquisition by NCR, where I became CTO for SaaS systems, consumer products, and mobile development.”
“My current work at AnswerRocket centers on discovering deep insights in business data with AI. My work in intelligent agent technology is built on a foundation of natural language processing, one of AnswerRocket’s core features. I focus largely on the product – driving upgrades and delivering new functionalities to ensure our customers can easily extract insights from their data.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Finley shared:
“I love telling people they are being promoted or doing impromptu recognition. Building careers is addictive. But you probably want to know something more product-oriented. A customer that was in some trouble hired a new CEO and we were asked to build an agent that could help them formulate a 5-year strategic plan. Our AI learned from the ground truth and made some hard recommendations that did not go over well with the established leadership team, but the CEO agreed with the AI. The results were great, and three years later, they are going strong.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Finley explained:
“In March of 2023, AnswerRocket launched Max, a conversational AI assistant designed to help businesses explore, analyze, and uncover insights from their data. Max combines AnswerRocket’s augmented analytics platform with OpenAI’s GPT large language models to deliver a simple conversational AI experience for insights discovery. With Max, users can ask natural language questions and get back accurate insights and visualizations in seconds. Max was built LLM-first, meaning we are always current with the latest version, like GPT-4 Turbo and its advanced language processing capabilities. That lets Max understand and respond to a wide range of queries, making it easier than ever before to get the information business users need.”
Challenges Faced
Has Finley faced any specific bottlenecks in his sector of work recently? Finley acknowledged:
“Data is the perpetual bottleneck. Conventional warehouses require tedious cleaning projects that eat schedule and resources. A lot of that goes away when a language model is engaged helping to make sense of it.”
“I would also call the sensitivity around sending data into a cloud language model is a bottleneck that we are still working through. 20 years ago, enterprises got used to sending data into a cloud for storage. Now we need to get comfortable with letting a model look at it. It’s no less secure, but it’s a new cloud use case and that takes time.”
“Finally, technical talent is always in demand and the focus on language models over the last year has made engineers with those abilities even more scarce.”
Evolution Of AnswerRocket’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Finley noted:
“AnswerRocket was founded with the mission to make data and analytics accessible to all who need them. From the start, we’ve leveraged AI and machine learning technology to unleash the power of augmented analytics across organizations. Recent advancements in generative AI – particularly OpenAI’s release of the GPT LLMs – have helped us advance that goal to democratize powerful data analytics. Leveraging the power of GPT, AnswerRocket can now make it easier than ever for organizations to learn from their data: They just ask questions and get back deep, detailed insights.”
“But that’s just the start. In 2018 we introduced the concept of Skills as a way to augment the intelligence of an AI with specific business intelligence. That roadmap has led to the Skill Studio inside AnswerRocket, a low-code environment for business users to custom build their intelligent assistants.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones?
Finley replied: “The Max launch in March 2023.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Finley about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“We’re working with a global data, insights, and consulting company. The company collects behavioral and attitudinal data for some of the biggest advertisers in the world. They analyze this data to provide critical insights on their clients’ advertising efforts – i.e. how effective is a campaign, which messages are penetrating, etc.”
“They leverage AnswerRocket to analyze much of this data and yield many of those insights. AnswerRocket helps supplement their human analysts. For one, this streamlines the analytics efforts. For example, AnswerRocket can analyze a data set (such as a survey) and tell their analysts the 10 or so most important takeaways from that data within seconds. Moreover, the technology uncovers certain insights that might have remained hidden using just manual processes. In addition, the company is able to train and customize their AnswerRocket deployment so the tech thinks similarly to a human analyst. Ultimately, AnswerRocket provides insights that are fast, reliable and comprehensive.”
