Databricks Acquires Row Zero to Bring Governed Spreadsheets to Genie

Databricks has acquired Row Zero, a spreadsheet platform built to connect business users and AI agents with live enterprise data.

The acquisition will add a spreadsheet interface to Genie, Databricks’ AI coworker for business teams. Users will be able to analyse data, build models, explore scenarios and collaborate through a spreadsheet while working with data governed through Databricks’ platform.

Row Zero will integrate with Databricks’ Genie Ontology, Unity Catalog and Unity Gateway. The company said the integration will let users move between Genie’s conversational interface and spreadsheets for tasks such as pivoting, modelling and visualisation.

“Genie is helping make every knowledge worker dramatically more productive and impactful. As more finance, operations, and go-to-market teams adopt Genie, incorporating a seamless spreadsheet experience is a must-have,” said Patrick Wendell, Co-founder and VP of Engineering at Databricks.

Spreadsheets remain widely used by business teams for financial modelling, analysis and decision-making. However, spreadsheet files often involve exported or duplicated data that can sit outside an organisation’s governance and security controls.

Databricks said Row Zero addresses this by connecting spreadsheets directly to live, governed data sources. Queries can respect user permissions, data can refresh from authoritative sources, exports can be restricted and results can be written back to data systems.

The integration also brings spreadsheets into the agent workflow. Row Zero provides agent tools that allow users to work with data through the spreadsheet interface, while keeping agent actions interpretable and auditable.

Row Zero supports formulas, pivot tables and keyboard shortcuts used in tools such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. Its processing engine can work with billions of rows at interactive speeds, according to Databricks.

“We built Row Zero because we love spreadsheets but recognised they needed to seamlessly connect to enterprise-scale data with governance and security at the core,” said Breck Fresen, Founder and CEO of Row Zero.

“Joining Databricks accelerates our vision of giving business users the spreadsheet they deserve: secure, connected, scalable, and deeply integrated with AI agents,” Fresen added.

Row Zero was founded by former AWS and Tableau engineers. The team will join Databricks and continue working on Genie.

The spreadsheet platform will be available to Databricks customers across major cloud providers and will continue to support data sources outside Databricks.