Alation boosts agentic AI with Numbers Station acquisition
The acquisition adds capabilities such as Chat that enable users to embed agents in workflows to complement the vendor's existing plans for agentic development.
Alation on Tuesday reached an agreement to acquire Numbers Station in a move aimed at adding new agentic AI development capabilities.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Numbers Station is a 2021 startup based in Austin, Texas, that enables users to quickly build and deploy agentic AI applications as well as connect agents so that they can work together to take on tasks previously performed by humans. Before its acquisition by Alation, the vendor raised $17.5 million in venture capital funding.
Alation, a data catalog specialist based in Redwood City, Calif., unveiled Agentic Platform in March. The suite, which is in beta testing, features both an agentic AI SDK as well as a set of agents that automate tasks such as documentation, data discovery and data governance.
The acquisition of Numbers Station adds new capabilities to Alation's Agentic Platform related to using structured data to inform AI applications. As a result, it is a significant move for the vendor's users, according to William McKnight, president of McKnight Consulting Group.
"This move is brilliant on Alation's part," he said. "Numbers Station is an undiscovered gem and will enhance Alation's AI capabilities, particularly in understanding and leveraging structured data. The combined strengths aim to enable trusted, scaled AI and unlock new agentic workflows that deliver business outcomes."
In conjunction with Agentic Platform and Alation's existing governance capabilities, the acquisition should accelerate Alation's development of a robust environment for agentic AI development, McKnight added.
Adding agentic AI
Agents, which are applications that can act autonomously to perform business processes, are at the forefront of AI development.
With AI capable of making workers better informed and more efficient, enterprises' interest in AI development surged following OpenAI's November 2022 launch of ChatGPT, which represented a significant improvement in generative AI (GenAI) technology. Concurrently, given that data provides the intelligence aspect of AI, many data management vendors created environments for their customers to develop GenAI applications. They also developed GenAI tools of their own to simplify using complex platforms.
Initially, bots that enabled users to generate code or ask questions and receive responses using natural language rather than code were cutting-edge. Now, agents that don't need to be prompted to do work such as exploring data to surface insights, documenting work and monitoring data for anomalies are the latest trend.
As agentic AI has emerged, numerous data management vendors have expanded their AI development environments to add agentic development capabilities. In addition, some have already launched agents of their own that make it easier and more efficient to use their platforms.
In addition to Alation, Informatica and Boomi are among those expanding into agentic AI development. Meanwhile, Databricks -- one of the most aggressive developers of an AI development environment in the wake of ChatGPT's launch -- recently spent $1 billion to acquire PostgreSQL database vendor Neon in a move aimed at simplifying and speeding agentic AI development.
Key to Alation's acquisition of Numbers Studio are the additions of Chat and Workflow, according to Satyen Sangani, Alation's co-founder and CEO.
Chat is an agent that users can embed into workflows and applications to better understand their own business. Workflow enables users to connect and run analytics-based processes. Combined with Alation's metadata foundation, they will better enable the development of agents that can reason and take action in real time than Agentic Platform alone.
In addition, the acquisition of Numbers Station adds predictive analytics and data storytelling capabilities, which is significant, according to McKnight.
This move is brilliant on Alation's part. Numbers Station is an undiscovered gem and will enhance Alation's AI capabilities, particularly in understanding and leveraging structured data.
William McKnightPresident, McKnight Consulting Group
"Numbers Station's technology allows for more intuitive interaction with data and enables users to receive fast insights without requiring technical expertise, which has been a goal of AI players," he said.
Stewart Bond, an analyst at IDC, similarly noted that Alation's acquisition of Numbers Station adds complementary capabilities.
He said Alation's existing data catalog capabilities help provide the needed context for agents that can be developed with Numbers Station's capabilities. Meanwhile, Numbers Station's agentic AI tools can help Alation's data catalog evolve.
"This is a good acquisition for Alation," Bond said. "This acquisition will provide Alation with deeper capabilities in agentic development, and for Numbers Station, it provides all the necessary data intelligence to improve the accuracy of agent outcomes."
With its acquisition of Numbers Station, Alation chose to buy agentic AI development capabilities that complement Agentic Platform rather than develop them internally. Buying capabilities is faster than building them, and that -- along with acquiring expert talent -- was a main factor in the decision to purchase Numbers Station, according to Sangani.
"The decision to acquire rather than build came down to speed, talent and strategic alignment," he said. "Numbers Station has built a powerful set of AI agents, and the technology complements Alation's platform and accelerates our roadmap. Additionally, their team brings deep expertise in applied AI, which strengthens our ability to innovate quickly."
Buying rather than building is not without risk. However, acquiring agentic AI development capabilities to augment Alation's Agentic Platform is wise, given the speed with which AI is evolving, according to Bond.
"To stay ahead of trends and the competition, buying these capabilities accelerates Alation's growth in agentic," he said. "Agentic is the future, and if Alation can execute the integration and vision of data intelligence agents, they have an opportunity for success."
Looking ahead
Alation's near-term focus will be on integrating Numbers Station after the acquisition, which remains subject to customary closing conditions, according to Sangani. In particular, combining Numbers Station's capabilities with applications now in Alation's recently launched Data Products Marketplace will be a priority.
"We expect this to happen quickly," Sangani said.
McKnight noted that Alation's acquisition of Numbers Station is mainly aimed at making AI agents trustworthy when working with structured data. To further expand, Alation could add other agentic AI capabilities as well as delve into new areas of data management, such as data observability.
"To evolve, Alation could expand agentic AI into autonomous data insights and actions, and conversational analytics," McKnight said. "It could also add data observability to become a full data intelligence platform."
Eric Avidon is a senior news writer for Informa TechTarget and a journalist with more than 25 years of experience. He covers analytics and data management.
