Pigment launches AI-generated interfaces to broaden business planning
Business planning software provider Pigment SAS today introduced an AI-powered interface builder that lets users create data-entry forms, scenario planners and executive presentations using natural-language prompts.
The new capability, called Pigment Frames, generates custom interfaces connected directly to the company’s underlying planning platform in real time. The company said Frames differs from standalone generative AI tools that can create dashboards or applications but may not have access to live, governed enterprise data.
“You can actually build any type of business application to collect data,” said Ben Previeux, Pigment’s head of product and AI strategy. Although Pigment currently focuses on planning, he said customers already use the platform to collect operational information such as accounting contract details and fleet expenses.
Frames can be used across finance, human resources, supply chain management and sales performance. A company could, for example, create customized interfaces for hiring, managing employee absences or reallocating sales quotas. Users can refine the interface and its underlying logic conversationally.
Frames works with Pigment’s Modeler Agent, introduced in March, which builds the underlying dimensions, metrics, formulas and other business logic. Together, they let users generate both the application and its interface.
Previeux described a recent workshop with Uber Technologies Inc. in which participants drew a proposed application on a whiteboard and sent a photograph of the sketch to the Modeler Agent. The AI converted the image into a Frame, letting the group refine the user experience before asking the agent to build the back end.
“It took about one hour for an application that may have taken several weeks to build otherwise,” he said.
AI-generated applications must pass through a publishing workflow before they can be deployed. The agent checks formulas, relationships and generated data, while users can review its reasoning and see which Pigment objects supply individual metrics.
“We ask the user to verify because there is no 100% guarantee that something built by AI will work,” Previeux said. The lineage information is intended to help users confirm that the interface is drawing from the correct sources.
Frames inherits the platform’s existing security controls. Access rights determine which information each person can view, even when multiple people use the same Frame. A country manager viewing a revenue application, for example, would see only data for authorized countries.
“You can’t access data you don’t have access to in Pigment,” Previeux said. “The Frame is based on a security primitive that makes it very robust to handle thousands of users with their own access rights in production.”
Pigment said customers already using Frames include Uber, Glean Technologies Inc., LinkedIn, Carta Inc., Unilever PLC, Supercell Oy and Vinci Concessions SA. In a statement, Glean Vice President of Finance and Business Operations Michael Miao said Frames converted a manually created business-critical analysis into a live interactive experience in which hiring assumptions can be adjusted and their effect on sales capacity immediately calculated.
Pigment also announced Agent Connectors, which allow its AI agents to retrieve business context from Notion Labs Inc., Google Drive and Slack. Together with Pigment’s existing Model Context Protocol server, the connectors create a two-way exchange.
External AI assistants can work with Pigment data while Pigment’s agents can access information held in other applications. Connections are subject to existing user permissions.
The company is also offering what it describes as the first free trial of an enterprise performance management platform. An AI-guided onboarding process builds a starter model and interactive board from a user’s description. Frames is included in the base platform at no additional charge, although customers pay for model usage through a credit system.
Founded in 2019, Pigment has raised nearly $400 million and says its annual recurring revenue now exceeds $100 million.
Image: Pixabay
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