Today, Oracle Corp announced new features for its cloud-based data analytics service to provide its 7000+ customers with more insights and collaboration tools. According to Gartner, the global cloud-based data and analytics services market is expected to grow 19.4% in 2021 to $77.6 billion. Oracle is playing a crucial role in the market with its latest advancements in the domain.

The company said its Oracle Analytics Cloud service now offers generative AI data interactions, which allow users to ask questions and get answers from data using natural language and AI-generated avatars. The avatars, powered by a partnership with Synthesia, can act as news readers and deliver data stories to business decision makers.

The software leader has also integrated its cloud service with OCI AI Services, which can read documents such as JPEG and PDF files and extract key values and their context. This can help users get information from documents and generate additional insights for their analytics.

Another new feature is contextual insights, which use machine learning to recommend insights based on the type and state of the data being viewed. These insights can help users understand the meaning of complex data without additional interpretation.

“Organisations across industries increasingly have all the data they need to enhance decision making, but the problem is that a lot of people still find the tools available to read and interpret that data intimidating because they don’t believe they have the skills to use them,” said TK Anand, executive vice president, Oracle Analytics. 

Oracle said it has also added collaboration software integrations with Microsoft Teams and Slack, enabling users to post dashboards, visualisations, and insights into real-time discussions with their colleagues. The company competes with other cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform in the data analytics market.