AI/BI

AI/BI is designed for everyone in an organization, not just data specialists, so business and nontechnical users can build dashboards and ask questions about their data in natural language. It is aimed at business teams who need self-service access to insights without relying on expert data practitioners. Customers such as Rivian, Virgin Atlantic and SEGA Europe use it to let broader groups, including executives, engineers, marketers and managers, get instant answers directly. This extends analytics access across the organization while keeping data governed in Unity Catalog.

AI/BI is made up of several native Databricks tools, including AI/BI Dashboards, Genie Spaces, Genie, Genie Code and the Databricks Lakehouse, all built into the Databricks Data + AI Platform. AI/BI Dashboards let business teams quickly create analytical datasets, interactive dashboards and data visualizations. Genie Spaces provide a conversational, generative-AI-powered experience for self-serving insights in real time through natural language, while Genie itself is a single place to explore dashboards, talk with Genie and use apps built with Databricks Apps. Unity Catalog Business Semantics centralizes business definitions so all of these tools share one consistent semantic layer.

AI/BI is built natively into the Databricks Data + AI Platform with no per-seat or per-license fees, which removes a cost structure common to many standalone BI tools. It runs analytics directly on governed data in Unity Catalog, keeping metrics, lineage and permissions aligned across BI dashboards, AI agents and downstream tools rather than relying on a separate, disconnected semantic layer. AI/BI is also AI-assisted from the ground up, supporting natural language dashboard creation and conversational analytics through Genie so users can ask follow-up questions and get answers without needing to build dashboards manually. This native integration is intended to remove access barriers and eliminate hidden BI costs across an organization.

AI/BI is available to existing Databricks Lakehouse (Classic, Pro and Serverless) customers and requires your data to be managed in Unity Catalog. This means organizations already running Databricks Lakehouse can enable AI/BI as part of their existing environment rather than adopting a separate product. Having data managed in Unity Catalog ensures the governance, metrics and permissions that AI/BI relies on are already in place.

There are no additional license fees to use AI/BI. Standard Databricks Lakehouse $DBU rates apply. This means organizations pay based on their existing Databricks usage rather than per-seat or per-license BI fees, which the platform positions as a way to remove barriers to broad, organization-wide access.

You can try AI/BI for free by signing up through Databricks or by exploring product demos first. Databricks also offers free self-paced training with three short videos and a quiz covering SQL analytics and AI/BI basics. For setup details across AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform, the AI/BI documentation provides full guidance. Existing Databricks Lakehouse customers with data managed in Unity Catalog can enable AI/BI directly within their workspace.