Databricks, the Data and AI company, announced it has acquired Row Zero, the spreadsheet built for humans and agents to work together with data. The acquisition will expand the capabilities of Genie, Databricks’ AI coworker, which helps business teams turn data into trusted answers and actions. Genie can analyze why margins changed or produce a document on sales pipeline opportunities. With Row Zero, Genie will add a familiar spreadsheet interface that business teams can use to explore, model, and collaborate, all on a governed foundation powered by Genie Ontology, Unity Catalog, and Unity Gateway.
Why Bring Secure Governed Spreadsheets to Genie?
After four decades, spreadsheets remain the most broadly used analytics tool in the business world. Their flexibility lets users represent the most sophisticated business models through a set of familiar, well-proven formulas. For this reason, spreadsheets remain the primary engine of business decision-making despite continuous advances in the data and analytics market.
The prevalence of spreadsheets also creates major security and governance challenges for the modern enterprise. Teams have long relied on ungoverned spreadsheet files (“spreadmarts”) to store data or to share between humans and agents. Every data export adds to what is arguably the largest set of ungoverned data pipelines in the enterprise. As companies deploy agents that analyze, model, and act on business data, they can’t afford to have those agents operating on sensitive data of unknown lineage and quality.
Row Zero closes this gap by offering a scalable spreadsheet that connects directly to live, governed data. This means teams can work the way they always have, backed by built-in security and governance. And because they can work directly with the spreadsheet via Row Zero’s agent tools, every agent action remains fully interpretable and auditable by the business teams using the spreadsheet’s syntax and processing model. Row Zero will natively integrate with the Databricks Data + AI Platform, including Genie on web as well as desktop and mobile apps, so teams can easily move from chat to hands-on pivoting, modeling, and visualization.
“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 Mr. Patrick Wendell, Co-founder and VP of Engineering at Databricks. “We’re super excited to bring the Row Zero team to Databricks, helping us continue to evolve Genie’s capabilities to become the go-to AI coworker for every enterprise team.”
Flexibility Meets Governance with Row Zero
Finance, operations, sales, and marketing teams have already picked spreadsheets as their tool of choice. Now, Row Zero extends Genie and the Databricks Data + AI Platform within the familiar spreadsheet interface. Key capabilities include:
- Full compatibility with leading spreadsheets: Designed to complement popular tools such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, Row Zero features the familiar formulas, pivots, and keyboard shortcuts teams already know and love, so users can leverage their skills and assets frictionlessly.
- Governed integration into leading data platforms: Row Zero features direct integration into leading data sources. Queries honor each user’s permissions, data auto-refreshes from authoritative live sources, exports can be locked down, and users can write results back, all without stale copies or manual refreshes. Every interaction is auditable, and security controls travel with the data wherever it goes.
- Lightning-fast performance at scale: Row Zero features a data processing engine that allows business users to work with billions of rows at interactive speeds.
“We built Row Zero because we love spreadsheets but recognized they needed to seamlessly connect to enterprise-scale data with governance and security at the core. Joining Databricks accelerates our vision of giving business users the spreadsheet they deserve: secure, connected, scalable, and deeply integrated with AI agents,” said Mr. Breck Fresen, Founder and CEO of Row Zero.
The team behind Row Zero was founded by former AWS and Tableau engineers. They are joining Databricks to continue expanding Genie’s capabilities. Row Zero will be available to all Databricks customers across all major clouds and will continue to feature support for data sources beyond Databricks.
Covered By: SMART SOLUTIONS WORLD / Databricks
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