October 15, 2025 — New York (THETECHMUSK=TTM) — Startup Alkemi is aiming at one of the most persistent bottlenecks in modern businesses: waiting on analysts to turn data into answers. Today, the company launched DataLab, a conversational AI workspace designed to let any employee — not just data scientists — query live business data and get reliable insights in seconds.
The premise is simple but ambitious: empower everyone from marketing managers to finance leads to ask complex data questions in plain English. Whether it’s “Which campaign lowered customer acquisition costs last quarter?” or “Where are our margins shrinking — and why?”, DataLab delivers instant, traceable answers directly from governed data systems like Snowflake, Databricks, or Looker.
“Everyone knows what it’s like to wait on a report, only to realize that by the time it arrives, the question has changed,” said Connor Folley, co-founder and CEO of Alkemi. “DataLab ends that cycle. It gives every team instant insight and a point of view they can trust.”
Breaking the BI Backlog
Business intelligence tools have long promised self-service analytics, but most teams still rely on technical specialists to extract insights. Alkemi’s approach merges BI transparency with AI usability, creating what the company calls a “true thought partner” for decision-making.
Unlike typical AI assistants that rely on generic public data or large language model guesswork, DataLab connects directly to a company’s internal data stack. It keeps data local, secure, and auditable, ensuring no proprietary information is used to train external models — a growing concern in corporate AI adoptionPR.
A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 81% of business professionals already use AI tools like ChatGPT for decision-making, but most outputs are incomplete or unverified. DataLab aims to close that reliability gap by grounding AI reasoning in verifiable enterprise data.
More Than Insights — A Data Marketplace
Beyond internal analytics, DataLab introduces a novel twist: a data monetization layer. External data providers can publish AI-ready data products that businesses can discover, query, and integrate directly into their workflows — effectively turning DataLab into a marketplace for decision intelligence.
The platform also features traceable logic and sources, allowing users to see how each insight was generated. That transparency, Alkemi believes, will make AI-driven recommendations more trustworthy and actionable across the enterprise.
A Responsible Path for AI at Work
With enterprise AI adoption growing fast — and many companies struggling to balance innovation with security — Alkemi’s timing may be ideal. Its pitch aligns with the broader trend of responsible AI: tools that enhance productivity without exposing organizations to compliance or data privacy risks.
In an era when every employee is becoming an AI user, Alkemi wants to ensure they’re also an informed one.
About Alkemi:
Alkemi helps businesses use AI responsibly by making their data accessible, explainable, and secure. Its flagship product, DataLab, turns internal and external data into transparent AI-driven intelligence so every team can make faster, smarter, and safer decisions.
🔗 Try DataLab: https://www.alkemi.ai
Final Thought
As enterprises push to become more data-fluent, the battle is no longer about having data — it’s about using it fast, reliably, and at scale by those who need it most. Alkemi’s DataLab stakes a bold claim: analytics should not be a bottleneck reserved for specialists, but a capability distributed throughout the organization. Time will tell whether it can deliver on that promise without compromising trust or clarity — but the ambition is one worth watching.
