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Artyom Keydunov created the Dice semantic layer as a facet venture again in 2018 to make sure constant solutions to queries generated by the brand new Slack chatbot he had constructed. Quick ahead seven eventful years, and semantic layers have emerged as a vital factor within the agentic AI stack. If the market calls for an open commonplace for the semantic layer, Dice is able to present it, Keydunov stated.
The pure language tech that Keydunov used for that early Slack chatbot was nothing in comparison with what ChatGPT and different giant language fashions can do. “It was primary–inferior to what we have now at this time,” the Dice CEO and co-founder instructed BigDATAwire. “However then I shortly realized I would want to construct my very own semantic layer so this straightforward AI can work.”
The Dice semantic layer–which permits customers to determine widespread metrics for his or her information and helps to make sure constant solutions for SQL queries–shortly took off among the many burgeoning Slack group. That early success for Dice led Keydunov to determine an organization across the open supply semantic layer in 2020.
Dice adoption continued to develop steadily in 2020 and 2021, largely centered on guaranteeing that the info offered in conventional BI dashboards is ruled and correct. Most BI instruments have their very own semantic layers, however the benefit of getting an impartial layer is realizing you’ll get constant solutions even when utilizing a number of front-end BI instruments and a number of information warehouse backends.
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, it drove an explosion of curiosity within the semantic layer. Abruptly, the sport had shifted, and Dice discovered itself smack dab in the course of one thing large.
Dice CEO and Co-founder Artyom Keydunov
“I didn’t anticipate that,” Keydunov admitted. “It’s an attention-grabbing twist to the plot. But it surely additionally created a novel once-in-a-lifetime alternative for our firm, as a result of everybody began speaking in regards to the semantic layer that you just wanted for AI, that you just want this shared medium between people and AI to have the ability to perceive metrics and discuss in regards to the metrics and be on the identical web page between machines and people. So undoubtedly it was sudden, however we acquired very fortunate that it occurred.”
Dice has been adopted by tens of 1000’s of organizations, starting from small tech startups to the most important tech firms and retailers on the earth, Keydunov stated. Many of those organizations are utilizing Dice to make sure that SQL queries generated by chatbots and agentic AI options have entry to constant, ruled information.
Dice expanded its product breadth significantly in June with the launch of Dice D3. The brand new agentic analytics providing, which isn’t a part of the open supply Dice venture, primarily is a front-end BI device that enables prospects to leverage the facility of AI to construct dashboards. Dice by no means wished to be out there for front-end BI instruments, however the trajectory of AI BI, or agentic analytics, is simply too nice to go up.
“It’s a very distinctive alternative for us to couple AI with the semantic layer and create a totally new BI expertise reimagined,” Keydunov stated. “So our agentic analytics is basically a BI product, constructed from scratch to be AI-first and absolutely primarily based on our semantic layer.”
The D3 GUI has all of the options you’d anticipate from an everyday BI device, he stated. The massive distinction is that the BI content material could be absolutely created and maintained by AI with people within the loop. That is how BI overcomes the perpetual scarcity of knowledge analyst consultants and in the end democratizes BI.
“What is going on proper now could be AI is altering how we work, each job position and performance,” Keydunov stated. “I believe we’ll have hundreds of thousands of dashboards within the subsequent 12 months or so in a single group, as a result of it’s simply really easy now to construct dashboards with AI. However then how do you guarantee these hundreds of thousands of dashboards are corrected and well-governed in the event that they’re created by AI? That’s why you want a sematic layer greater than ever. That’s a trusted proxy.”
We’re nonetheless within the early days of semantic layer turning into a longtime member of the rising AI stack. Databricks and Snowflake launched their very own semantic layers two months in the past. Snowflake’s semantic views and Databricks Unity Catalog metric views are each in beta, and anticipated to be typically out there quickly.
The Snowflake and Databricks strikes display the vital significance of getting constant and ruled information. If AI goes to the touch each workflow and each trade as marketed, it’s going to wish effectively managed, prime quality information to behave upon. A semantic layers can be certain that all of the entities querying a given dataset–and even a number of information units–are all on the some web page.
The query then turns into: Does the market want an open commonplace for the semantic layer? Keydunov shouldn’t be positive the market is able to make that call but.
“Everybody makes their product in a novel approach. There’s a whole lot of particulars; the satan within the particulars. If you happen to undertake the open spec, what would it not seem like?”
Keydunov stated he has talked with different semantic layer builders to see if there’s a technique to create a single specification. At this time limit, with so many alternative approaches being tried, it might appear that an ordinary spec shouldn’t be significantly shut.
“Whereas I believe there’s a want to do this, I don’t suppose it’s one thing that’s pressing or urgent,” he stated. “Hopefully as soon as the agentic AI BI market matures, we’ll get to the purpose the place we’ll have a business spec.”
The Dice semantic layer is designed to supply constant information to stakeholders
If an ordinary is required, then Keydunov wouldn’t be against Dice being the mannequin for it. The open supply venture is already managed brazenly on GitHub. It has practically 19,000 GitHub stars, practically 13,000 Slack members, and about 350 particular person contributors. It’s distributed below an Apache 2.0 license.
Whereas different semantic layers present some software program as open supply or supply out there, Dice is the one semantic layer that you could simply obtain and run, Keydunov stated.
“We do the entire runtime,” he stated. “If you wish to use the semantic layer in open supply and simply absolutely management it… you possibly can simply take the entire Dice venture and run it nonetheless you need. You possibly can modify it. You are able to do no matter you need with it. You don’t have to contact the Dice– business entity in any respect.”
Keydunov stated he has thought-about contributing Dice to an open supply basis, such because the Apache Software program Basis or the Linux Basis. “We could possibly be open to that,” he stated. “Individuals contribute it to exterior of their organizations, so it’s fairly open from [a true open source standpoint]. We by no means actually set it as a aim to contribute it to Apache, however on the identical time, why not?”
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