San Francisco, CA – August 25, 2021 – Skai, the leading commerce intelligence platform, today announced the launch of Ask MI (pronounced “ask me”), an AI-powered, search-based, self-serve market intelligence solution that puts AI-powered consumer and market insights into the hands of everyone. Using natural language, users can type any word, phrase, or question into Ask MI’s intuitive search bar to access easily understood, interactive dashboards that provide powerful insights about the consumers, brands, products, competitors, and innovation within their category. 

A pioneer in the data analytics space, Skai was among the first to connect and contextualize external data so insights teams could understand not only what is happening in the market but also why. Historically, Skai’s market intelligence platform served those already comfortable analyzing data within a brand; Ask MI was designed to support data-driven decision making for all business users with an intuitive, foolproof interface. Skai’s existing Explore MI product surfaces advanced market and category insights to savvy insights teams for deeper data exploration; Connect MI allows data and analytics professionals to access Skai’s extensive data lake to enhance proprietary systems. Ask MI combines the power of big data and AI with a universally accessible user experience, regardless of technological skill set, creating a groundbreaking resource for consumer brands that must keep pace with a rapidly changing market.

“The goal of Ask MI was to use a familiar interface—the ask-and-answer, natural-language search bar—as a portal to transformative, proprietary insights. Whether it’s marketing, sales, product development or other areas, the brands we serve are led by people who need to make fast, informed decisions,” says Kate DuBois, General Manager of Marketing Intelligence at Skai. “Ask MI removes the barriers to leveraging data, empowering all employees to address business problems based on the same source of truth as their teams of analysts. It shortens time to insight and ultimately maximizes return from the organization’s data investment.”

Democratizing data access across the organization is the next step for many data-driven businesses to reap the full benefit from their data investments. In fact, a recent Google Cloud and Harvard Business Review survey of industry leaders showed that 97% of those surveyed believe organization-wide access to data and analytics is critical to the success of their business. However, only 60% believe their organizations are effectively distributing that access today. Major challenges—like siloed data, varying technological skill levels and bandwidth among staff, and not knowing what to look for when sifting through uncontextualized data—prevent organizations from truly democratizing their data. Ask MI was designed to surmount these challenges. Its intuitive interface represents a much-needed revolution in data accessibility. 

Ask MI is now available to all new and existing Skai clients. To learn more about Ask MI, visit skai.io/capabilities/ask-mi.

About Skai

Skai is a commerce intelligence platform that powers brand insights, decisions and execution for faster, more predictable go-to-market outcomes. Skai’s platform includes a suite of data-driven products for market intelligence, omnichannel media activation, testing and measurement, enabling product, insights and marketing teams to accurately plan strategies and benefit from connected omnichannel launches. Skai merges the former Kenshoo and Signals Analytics capabilities and for more than a decade, has been trusted by an impressive roster of global brands including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Estée Lauder, Nestle, Johnson & Johnson, Mars and others. With its expanded product suite, Skai is unifying data and helping companies better understand their consumers in real-time. It has seven international locations and is backed by Sequoia Capital, Arts Alliance, Tenaya Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Pitango and Qumra Capital.