Executive Summary

Key Takeaways

AI analytics platforms are transforming traditional business intelligence by embedding AI, machine learning and generative AI directly into analytics workflows. Organizations increasingly rely on these platforms to automate data preparation, simplify analysis and broaden access to insights through conversational interfaces and intelligent assistants. As AI capabilities mature, analytics platforms are evolving from reporting tools into decision-support systems that improve productivity, accelerate insight generation and operationalize data-driven decisions.

Software Provider Summary
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for AI Analytics evaluates 22 software providers offering products that support AI-enhanced analytics, data preparation and intelligent decision support. The research ranked the top three overall leaders as Oracle, IBM and AWS. Providers were classified using weighted performance in Product Experience and Customer Experience for ISG quadrant placement. AWS, Databricks, Domo, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce and SAP were rated Exemplary, with Microsoft, ServiceNow, Strategy and Zoho rated Innovative. Google, Infor, Qlik and ThoughtSpot were rated Assurance, and Alibaba Cloud, Epicor, Idera, insightsoftware, OpenText, SAS and Sisense were rated Merit.

Product Experience Insights
Product Experience, representing 80% of the evaluation, focuses on Capability (60%) and Platform (20%), including adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. Oracle, Domo and IBM achieved the highest performance as Leaders in this category, supported by AI-assisted analytics capabilities, including automated insights, query assistance, forecasting, AI and machine learning modeling and agent support. Leaders demonstrated enterprise-grade platform capabilities across varied analytics, data management and decision-support contexts.

Customer Experience Value
Customer Experience, representing 20% of the evaluation, focuses on validation and TCO/ROI. AWS, Oracle and IBM were the Leaders in this category, showing strong customer commitment and clear dedication to customer needs. Providers with lower performance often lacked sufficient information to demonstrate customer success, articulate commitment to customer experience or communicate measurable value through TCO/ROI.

Strategic Recommendations
Organizations should evaluate AI analytics platforms based on the strength of the core analytics foundation and embedded AI capabilities. Assessment should prioritize data preparation, conversational analytics, automation, governance, explainability and integration across the analytics lifecycle. Enterprises should also evaluate provider roadmaps for generative AI, agentic AI and AutoML capabilities that improve analyst productivity while maintaining transparency, governance and trust in AI-generated insights.

 

The Findings

The software providers and products evaluated in this research offer product and customer experiences, but not every feature is equally valuable to every enterprise or is needed to support the relevant business processes and use cases. Moreover, having too many product capabilities may be a negative factor for an enterprise if it introduces unnecessary complexity. Nonetheless, you may decide that a more comprehensive set of capabilities is important and meets your enterprise’s requirements.

An effective customer relationship with a software provider is vital to the success of any investment. The overall customer experience and the full lifecycle of engagement play a key role in ensuring satisfaction and long-term success. Providers with dedicated customer leadership, such as chief customer officers, tend to invest more deeply in these ISG_BG_AI_Analytics_Overall_2026relationships and prioritize customer outcomes in line with TCO and ROI expectations. It is equally important that this commitment to customer success is evident throughout the provider’s website, the buying process and the customer journey.

Overall Scoring of Software Providers Across Categories

The research finds Oracle atop the list, followed by IBM and AWS. Providers that place in the top three of a category earn the designation of Leader. Oracle has done so in four categories, AWS and IBM in three, Domo in two and Databricks, Strategy and Zoho in one.

About the authors

David Menninger

David Menninger

David is responsible for the overall research direction of data, information and analytics technologies at Ventana Research covering major areas including Analytics, Big Data, Business Intelligence and Information Management along with the additional specific research categories including Information Applications, IT Performance Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence and IoT, and Data Science. David is also responsible for examining the role of cloud computing, collaboration and mobile technologies as they affect these areas. David brings to Ventana Research over twenty-five years of experience, through which he has marketed and brought to market some of the leading edge technologies for helping organizations analyze data to support a range of action-taking and decision-making processes. Prior to joining Ventana Research, David was the Head of Business Development & Strategy at Pivotal a division of EMC, VP of Marketing and Product Management at Vertica Systems, VP of Marketing and Product Management at Oracle, Applix, InforSense and IRI Software. David earned his MS in Business from Bentley University and a BS in Economics from University of Pennsylvania.
Mawish Rahman

Mawish Rahman

Mawish Rahman supports the analyst team in software research with a focus on AI, analytics and products. This includes contributing to the firm’s Market Perspectives and Buyers Guide products. She works closely with the revenue, products and client success teams to deliver valuable insights to the market.