Technology 3 min read By Callum Montgomery
Databricks Unveils Background AI Agents That Analyze Business Data Without Prompts
Databricks unveiled on Wednesday new agentic AI tools capable of continuously analyzing scattered corporate data, one day after Anthropic released office productivity products.
Databricks launched on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, a new series of agentic artificial intelligence tools aimed at businesses. These tools continuously analyze and organize data scattered across an organization's systems, without waiting for an employee to request it. The group is thus directly entering the race among AI players to win over knowledge workers.
The update notably concerns Genie, the company's assistant. It now operates in the background, observes the work of employees, and suggests actions to take. Another feature, called "Ontology," scans the organization's internal data, including reporting lines and the projects carried out by each department, in order to reconstruct how the company actually functions.
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi says he uses these tools at every hour of the day and describes them as transformative. This is a central commercial argument: the company seeks to show that its agents can deliver daily value, beyond demonstrations. Databricks remains, however, a privately held company. It raised $5 billion in August, based on a valuation of $190 billion.
The Databricks launch closely follows that of Anthropic, which the previous day published office productivity tools. Among them is an AI-powered spreadsheet that directly competes with Excel and Google Sheets. Its Claude assistant can also join video conferences and begin working during the exchanges. These announcements come as Anthropic's stock market listing is expected the following week, with a possible valuation of $1.4 trillion.
Anthropic's prospectus cites a figure to convey the size of the targeted market: knowledge work would represent more than $40 trillion worldwide in 2025. Industry observers are closely following this listing, which they see as a signal for the entire AI industry.
The sector remains divided, however, on the real profitability of these technologies. AI has already proven itself in computer programming, but its return on investment in other business functions remains unclear. Some observers believe autonomous agents could open a much broader market by extending the use of these tools beyond technical teams.
Ali Ghodsi was also asked about Nvidia's news. Reports indicate that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an extramarital affair with a person suspected of being a Chinese spy, raising concerns about repercussions for the group if Huang were to step down due to Nvidia's role in supplying chips. Ali Ghodsi believes Jensen Huang should remain at the head of the company and expects the sector to absorb the shock.
Source: fortune.com
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