Organizations today face a data paradox: they need to make fast, intelligent decisions but are overwhelmed by large volumes of often unreliable information. With over 75% of business leaders under pressure to prove data’s value, the demand for trusted, actionable insights has never been greater.
Salesforce’s Tableau Next introduces a new approach to business intelligence, evolving its flagship analytics platform with agentic analytics to address this challenge. This innovative, AI-powered solution simplifies and accelerates data interaction, empowering organizations to uncover insights, automate visualizations, and drive impactful business outcomes.
What is agentic analytics?
Agentic analytics allows users to collaborate with AI agents to speed up the entire data-to-action process. Instead of relying on static visualizations, analysts can use AI to automate tasks like data preparation and ETL (extract, transform, load processes), freeing them to focus on deeper analysis. Business leaders can ask natural language questions and get instant, reliable answers along with recommended actions. This makes data-driven decision-making easier and more efficient, removing the need for technical expertise and manual effort typical of traditional BI tools.
What is Tableau Next?
Tableau Next leverages agentic analytics across the entire data-to-action workflow, empowering every user to:
- Automate repetitive data tasks like data cleaning, transformation, and visualization generation, as well as the execution of complex, multi-step analytical workflows within and across different business areas. This builds on Tableau’s strength in simplifying complex data for users.
- Proactively deliver faster, more comprehensive insights by autonomously detecting hidden correlations, outliers, and trends that might be missed by human observation. This enhances Tableau’s focus on user-driven insights by providing AI guidance.
- Enable more contextual and effective action through natural language summaries, visualizations, and data-driven recommendations, insights delivered where people work with an enterprise-class workflow engine that enables users to kick off automated actions. This extends Tableau’s ability to drive action from data, making it more seamless within the Salesforce ecosystem.
How Tableau Next works
Built on the trusted Salesforce Platform and leveraging the power of Data Cloud, Tableau Next delivers enterprise-grade performance, robust security, and flexible, zero-copy data integration for seamless data connectivity. Tableau Semantics, an intelligent semantic layer, provides a unified understanding of information, ensuring data consistency and accelerating the discovery of critical insights. The built-in workflow engine in Tableau Next seamlessly translates insights directly into actionable steps, dramatically accelerating the time to value. The key differentiator is the native integration with Agentforce, Tableau Next equips humans and AI agents with pre-built analytical skills to rapidly transform data into tangible business value, marking a significant leap forward in data-driven decision-making. It includes:
- Agentic AI Skills to Supercharge Your Data:
- Data Pro: Your Intelligent Data Prep Assistant. Instead of users manually cleaning up and changing data using complex steps (like in traditional ETL), Data Pro will give smart suggestions on how to do it and even automatically handle some of the complicated changes, saving time and effort.
- Concierge: Instant Answers in Plain Language. Get immediate, reliable answers to data questions. Sales teams, for example, can simply ask “What are my best sales opportunities?” and receive clear insights with recommended actions.
- Inspector: Proactive Data Monitoring & Insights. Continuously tracks your data for key changes, analyzes trends, and predicts improvements. Service teams can be instantly alerted to drops in customer satisfaction, enabling immediate action.
- Ensuring Data Trust and Accuracy:
- Tableau Semantics: Tableau Semantics serves as the semantic layer, providing Tableau Next and Agentforce with a unified understanding of business data. By establishing consistent definitions and context, it enables AI agents to generate accurate and relevant responses.
- Boosting Efficiency:
- Marketplace: Allows users to easily share and reuse data analysis components (like data assets, connections, metrics, visualizations, dashboards), saving time and ensuring everyone is working with the same information.
The Salesforce perspective
“Tableau Next helps businesses achieve faster, more impactful results with their data,” said Ryan Aytay, CEO of Tableau. “We’re shifting from basic reports to a world where AI is a collaborative decision-making partner. By combining AI agents with trusted data and easy-to-use tools, we’re making data accessible to everyone and transforming the data-to-action process into an automated, proactive, and insight-driven cycle. This empowers users to improve decision-making, boost efficiency, and manage risk more effectively.”
Tableau Next helps businesses achieve faster, more impactful results with their data.
“Customers choose Box for our gold standard in security and compliance. This commitment is complemented internally with the power of Pulse’s analytics solutions, and we are incredibly excited by the promise of Tableau Next. We believe that Agentic Analytics will be instrumental in enhancing our ability to predict future trends and make strategic, data-informed decisions,” said Ravi Malick, Global CIO, Box.
“Integrated within the Salesforce ecosystem, Tableau Semantics creates a single source of truth, reducing conflicting interpretations to enhance collaboration, advance AI, and drive richer insights,” said Moritz Schieder, Global Tableau and Salesforce Analytics Lead, Deloitte.
“IBM is excited to use Tableau Next to drive greater value for our customers, no matter where they’re working. As a strategic Agentforce partner and Salesforce customer, we are ready and eager to usher in the next generation of analytics alongside Salesforce,” said Mary Rowe, Global Head of IBM Consulting Salesforce Practice.
Availability
- Tableau Next is now generally available with the Tableau+ SKU.
- Tableau Semantics is now generally available with Tableau Next.
- Concierge will be generally available in June 2025.
- Data pro will be generally available in June 2025.
- Inspector will be generally available in 2025.
- Internal Marketplace will be generally available in 2025.
Learn more:
- Watch the webinar to learn how Tableau enriches Agentforce agents
- Learn more about Tableau Next and follow along for the latest information
