SnapLogic wants to make it easier for users of its enterprise software integration platform to connect components of their business systems. The company has unveiled a new feature that uses machine learning to suggest what users may want to do.
The idea behind the new feature, announced this week, is to make it easier to connect and move data between enterprise software systems. SnapLogic’s service lets companies take a data source like a Concur instance, and synchronize that with information an ERP system like Microsoft Dynamics.
Users who choose to enable the machine learning system, named Iris, will see a pane pop up next to the SnapLogic integration editor when they start putting components together. Iris will suggest a handful of next steps, ranked in order of probable usefulness to the user.
Those suggestions are generated by a machine learning algorithm evaluating information about the data flows, integration paths, and patterns from the use of SnapLogic’s platform.
Iris’s current incarnation is designed to lead to a version of SnapLogic that can automatically build integrations, much like a self-driving car.
“[This is], in a sense, the first step to make integration fully autonomous, in the same sense that a GPS is the first step to an autonomous vehicle, a self-driving car,” said Gaurav Dhillon, the company’s CEO.
SnapLogic is one of the many businesses trying to help companies deal with their disconnected software systems. The idea behind this system is to make it easier for new users to get started, and speed up the work that more advanced users are doing.
“SnapLogic’s vision for AI-assisted data integration will greatly assist the citizen developer and data integration developer alike,” said Jim Teal, a senior cloud architect at iRobot and a SnapLogic user.
Iris is scheduled to be available in about 30 days for all of SnapLogic’s customers, as part of the service’s spring update. The feature will be available to existing customers at no extra charge.