Sisu Unveils New AI & ML Features for Its Decision Intelligence Engine

Graphic courtesy of Sisu.

Sisu has announced an expansion of its decision intelligence engine with new algorithms, integrations, and capabilities, including predictive analytics and anomaly detection. The company says its platform now automatically diagnoses key drivers of metric change, automates trend and anomaly detection, predicts changes before they occur, and connects to third-party systems.

Sisu is a Finnish word that describes an attitude of inner strength and perseverance, which is what some of today’s more complex data situations call for. Founder and CEO Peter Bailis, a 2021 Datanami person to watch, built Sisu to bridge the gap between the collection of rapidly expanding data volumes and companies actually using that data for decision making, which he calls the Decision Gap: “As cloud data is becoming table stakes, data volumes are rapidly growing and the subsequent Decision Gap is widening. Conventional tools for analytics have been unable to keep pace and more and more data is underutilized and underleveraged,” he said in a blog post.

The company says traditional analytics and BI workflows are time consuming and error prone, and operationalizing and automating cloud data is key for realizing its full potential. Sisu asserts that its decision intelligence engine tackles the skills gaps and budget constraints found in scaling data analytics capabilities. Through automated AI and ML model technologies, companies can be aware of what is changing with their business metrics, identify exactly why the metrics are changing, and then predict what will happen next in order to make the best decisions.

Sisu says its new ML-powered predictive analytics capabilities allow for anticipating the future impact of metrics changes through automated smart charts that visually track statistically relevant results. These automated analytics can help users diagnose the reasons for changes in metrics, which the company says can reduce bias and risk, optimize data pipeline workflows, and power collaboration and iteration based on data.

This graphic shows how Sisu’s decision intelligence engine answers key business questions. Source: Sisu

“Analyzing and identifying relevant insights from complex and changing cloud data is a machine-scale task,” says Bailis. “With Sisu, we’re giving people the power of ML to enable them to quickly cut through the noise, focus on what matters most, and drive real impact with data.”

Another expanded Sisu feature is trend and anomaly detection. The decision intelligence engine automatically tracks metrics to visualize trends in data over time to create a range of expected values for those metrics, allowing users to pinpoint anomalous data points found outside of that range. If a new or unexpected trend occurs, users can revisit prior decisions and come up with new actions to improve business processes. Sisu says this gives analysts the power to not only inform the initial decision but to monitor its impact as time goes on.

The Sisu update also includes new integrations, including one that allows notifications in email or Slack when metrics fall outside of their pre-defined parameters. The company also announced integrations with other platforms such as Looker, dbt, and Tableau, as well as an expanded Sisu API.

Customers and investors seem content with the company’s progress in the decision intelligence sphere. Sisu says some of its customers, including Overstock, have reported their speed-to-insights is 70-80% faster than when using legacy analytics tools: “Overstock’s data strategy is to be a proactive partner in decision-making across the organization. We chose to augment our analytics workflows with the Sisu Decision Intelligence Engine to help us quickly understand the ‘why’ behind changes in our data and performance. Since deploying Sisu, we’ve seen a 70-80% acceleration in speed-to-insights and, most importantly, more accurate insights,” says Fritz Van de Kamp, VP of analytics and business intelligence at Overstock.

The new platform updates come nearly a year after Sisu announced a $62 million Series C round that saw backing from Green Bay Ventures, a16z, NEA, and Geodesic Ventures and brought the company’s total funding to almost $130 million.

Sisu presented its updates this week at the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit in Orlando. The company is also offering a virtual webinar, “The Rise of Decision Intelligence,” with Eckerson Group on Wednesday, August 31 at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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