Amberd.ai wins Procon Analytics deal for AI BI shift

Amberd.ai has signed Procon Analytics as a customer to build an AI-native executive decision platform on top of Procon Analytics' existing business intelligence stack.

The project aims to replace long reporting cycles for senior leaders with direct access to answers drawn from financial, operational and internet-of-things data. Executives will be able to query the system in natural language instead of relying on static dashboards and repeated requests to analysts.

Procon Analytics develops connected car and automotive IoT products and data services. The companies said the decision to bring in Amberd.ai followed growing frustration with dashboard-based reporting, which could show performance trends but still left senior management waiting for additional analysis when they needed explanations behind the numbers.

The deal reflects a wider debate in corporate technology over the limits of conventional business intelligence tools. Dashboard systems remain useful for tracking predefined metrics, but companies are increasingly looking for systems that can answer unplanned questions and combine information from multiple parts of the business.

At Procon Analytics, the planned system will draw on the company's existing data environment rather than replace it. The aim is to help the executive team move from fixed reports to question-led analysis, with answers generated from a broader mix of internal data sources.

The platform is being designed to deliver narrative responses to management questions, shorten turnaround times for executive inquiries and identify patterns, anomalies and other drivers in the data. Amberd.ai said the environment will be private and governed, with sourced answers presented to users.

Brian Boling, chief executive officer of Procon Analytics, said the company had outgrown dashboard-only reporting for senior decision-making.

"At Procon Analytics, where we build connected car and automotive IoT solutions, we moved away from only plotting data on dashboards because that only got us part of the way," Boling said. "Most real business questions and insights still needed deeper digging and context. What's been more useful is using AI to work through the 'why' behind the numbers instead of just looking at charts. With Amberd.ai, we can explore those questions directly rather than waiting for someone to piece the story together for us."

Amberd.ai launched last month and was founded by Zaré Baghdasarian and Mazda Marvasti. The company describes itself as self-funded and focused on organizations with large volumes of structured and unstructured data.

BI shift

The agreement with Procon Analytics offers an early test of whether newer AI-based analytical systems can win a place alongside established business intelligence software inside companies. Instead of focusing on pre-built charts and reports, Amberd.ai is pitching its software as a layer that can interpret business questions and assemble responses from different data pools.

That approach is becoming more common as companies try to use large language models in day-to-day management processes. Supporters argue the technology can reduce the time spent preparing board and executive materials, while critics have raised concerns about reliability, data control and whether some products amount to little more than a conversational wrapper around existing reporting tools.

Marvasti said Amberd.ai sees a distinction between generating more dashboards and helping executives examine the reasons behind business movements.

"For years, most analytics tools have been great at producing more dashboards, not necessarily better decisions," said Mazda Marvasti, Co-founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Amberd.ai. "They're optimized for people who already know exactly what to ask and have the time and skills to build out the answer. With Procon Analytics, we're showing a different model: executives start with a real business question, and AI goes to work across the data to explain the 'why' and support the next decision."

Procon Analytics is based in Irvine, California, and focuses on automotive IoT and big data services for the car industry. Amberd.ai is based in Los Angeles. The new platform is intended to give Procon Analytics' executive team access to answers across multiple business datasets in seconds rather than weeks.