Top 10 Business Analytics Software for Eastern Europe

2026. Microsoft Power BI makes Copilot its primary interface



Microsoft has released an update to its Power BI business analytics system. It places Copilot directly on the homepage as the primary interface (you can return to the old recommended content page using the toggle at the top of the homepage). You can now attach a report or semantic model to a Copilot chat as a reference source. The selected item appears in the chat and Copilot uses it as the basis for its responses. Power BI report authors can now customize the colors of visualizations using the theme color picker and a custom color picker. Azure Maps visualizations for Power BI now support a powerful new feature: markers. Markers allow you to display data points with customizable icons, resizable dimensions, and advanced formatting options, enhancing the clarity and expressiveness of geospatial analysis.


2025. Salesforce to acquire cloud data management platform Informatica



Salesforce is acquiring cloud-based AI data management platform Informatica for $8 billion. The deal will help Salesforce expand its data management tools, gain greater control over how customers’ business data is managed and used and improve its ability to build AI agents. “Truly autonomous, trusted AI agents need the most contextual understanding possible, which means access to big amounts of data,” said Steve Fisher, president and chief technology officer of Salesforce. “Combining the advanced capabilities of the Informatica platform with our Agentforce platform delivers just that.” This deal with Informatica is Salesforce’s largest acquisition since its $28 billion buy-out of Slack in 2021.


2015. Microsoft integrates Cortana into Power BI service



Microsoft announced that Cortana personal assistant is coming to Power BI, its business intelligence tool that, it’s worth noting, already had some natural language query capabilities. Once connected, Cortana can now answer questions from your Power BI data sets for written and spoken queries like “revenue for the last quarter” or draw you a chart for the “number of opportunities by team.” Users have to ensure that Cortana has access to their Power BI data sets by enabling this new feature in Power BI.  With Cortana Analytics, Microsoft also currently offers a more bespoke solution for enterprises that focuses less on the Cortana client and more on the machine learning and automation services that power Cortana.


2014. Watson AI connects to Twitter for the benefit of business users



IBM has decided to use its Watson supercomputer to help businesspeople and executives. They launched Watson Analytics which allows users to create analytical tables and graphs using queries written in human (English) language. However, analyzing a company's own data is too easy a task for Watson's artificial intelligence. Analyzing an entire social network like Twitter and providing valuable advice to an executive is a more worthy pursuit. To achieve this, IBM entered into an agreement with Twitter and gained direct access to its database. Company representatives say that businesses have been using social media crawlers for support and marketing purposes for some time, but this only "scratches the surface of the data river." The integration of Twitter and Watson will allow companies to delve much deeper—for example, using human feedback to develop new products or optimize production logistics.


2006. New Salesforce version puts emphasis on analytics

In the new version of the Salesforce CRM system, the developers focused on capabilities for freely composable analytical functions. Users will be able to utilize the CRM system's analytical dashboards, connecting, exchanging, and managing business intelligence tools from various vendors. A wide range of BI capabilities are planned for the system's dashboards, including supply chain analysis, complex what-if scenarios, and profitability analysis. Other features of Winter '07 will include a new AJAX-based user interface, support for Asynchronous Javascript, integration with Cisco IP telephony, and support for Lotus Notes collaboration software. Salesforce.com also reported that its AppExchange platform for hosting and integrating third-party applications with the CRM system is currently used most often for building analytics, email marketing, and sales support tools, but a second wave of applications is approaching: HR, finance, administration, project management, bug tracking, and quality assurance.