How AI-powered product analytics accelerates time to insight
For today’s SaaS leaders, accelerating product roadmaps is a top priority. That’s why the most forward-thinking teams are embedding AI-native intelligence directly into the tools and workflows their users rely on every day.
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking with product leaders from Tekion, Navan, and ASK BOSCO in ThoughtSpot’s executive masterclass on embedded analytics. They shared how they’re improving customer outcomes and creating new revenue streams—and how you can apply the same strategies to your own roadmap. Here are their stories, insights, and takeaways.
1. Tekion: How to go from bottlenecks to breakthroughs with AI-powered analytics
Ehsan Hoque, Director of Product at Tekion, described how Tekion, a disruptor in automotive dealership software, faced mounting challenges with their homegrown analytics. As their customer base and data complexity grew, their engineering team couldn’t keep up with dashboard requests, leading to stale Product Requirement Documentation (PRD) and unmet customer expectations.
By embedding ThoughtSpot Embedded (TSE), Tekion was able to shift dashboard creation from engineering to product and services teams, dramatically reducing delivery times. This democratization empowered both internal teams and customers to build and customize dashboards themselves, leapfrogging Tekion’s analytics capabilities by years.
As Ehsan explained, the partnership with ThoughtSpot also enabled Tekion to co-innovate on features and monetize advanced analytics through a tiered model, all while maintaining a predictable cost structure and robust security for their multi-tenant SaaS environment.
“The partnership that we have received from ThoughtSpot has been phenomenal. They truly made us feel like we could influence their roadmap, and they truly made us feel like we are a partner.”
Key Insights
Build vs. Buy
Tekion chose to buy embedded analytics rather than build an in-house analytics solution because Tekion’s engineering resources were stretched thin, and the company’s rapid growth made it unsustainable to keep up with customer demands using their custom-built dashboards. Building internally would have required hiring a large team and still would not have delivered the advanced, AI-driven, conversational analytics and rapid innovation that customers expected.
Accelerated Delivery
ThoughtSpot supported accelerated delivery of insights by enabling Tekion to go from zero to a fully embedded analytics solution in about three months, including data modeling and deployment. The platform’s out-of-the-box capabilities, such as seamless embedding, flexible security models, and APIs for custom front-end development, allowed Tekion to deliver enterprise-grade dashboards and analytics to their customers quickly.
This rapid implementation reduced engineering drag, allowed Tekion’s product and professional services teams (not just engineers) to build dashboards, and empowered customers to access insights much faster than the previous six- to eight-month backlog for custom dashboard development.
Co-Innovation
Tekion valued the partnership approach that ThoughtSpot offered, including direct engagement with ThoughtSpot’s product and engineering leadership, which made them feel like true partners rather than just customers.
Monetization
Tekion introduced a tiered analytics model, with basic reports for free, prescriptive dashboards as a monetized tier, and a premium tier with AI-powered dashboards and benchmarking features. ThoughtSpot’s flexible embedding, security, and pricing model (aligned per dealer, not per user) allowed Tekion to monetize advanced analytics features without incurring unpredictable costs and to test new offerings in the market.
💡 Want to build the right foundations for embedded success? Hear the rest of Tekion’s journey in the first session of our executive series.
2. Navan: How to empower product teams and customers with self-service analytics
Elad Ganot, VP of Product and Engineering at Navan, explained how Navan, a leader in travel and expense management, faced the challenge of providing actionable, real-time analytics to a diverse customer base ranging from large enterprises to small businesses. Their previous approach relied on static, pre-built reports that limited users’ ability to explore data and required engineering resources for every new request.
With ThoughtSpot, Navan empowered non-technical users to interact directly with live data, customize their own dashboards, and set up alerts and sharing workflows. This shift freed up engineering to focus on data quality and new data sources, while product and analyst teams could rapidly iterate on customer needs. The result was faster delivery of insights, higher adoption, and validation from customers who found the new analytics both accessible and transformative for decision-making.
“Suddenly a very broad set of capabilities can happen overnight, which wasn't possible before. So if you think about road map and planning and what your engineers should focus on, that's a a whole new way to think about [it].”
Key Insights
Self-Service at Scale
Navan wanted to move beyond static, pre-built reports and empower users across a broad spectrum of data literacy to explore, analyze, and act on data without relying on BI experts or engineering resources. ThoughtSpot’s self-service capabilities aligned with Navan’s strategy of putting users first and driving adoption by making data accessible and actionable for everyone, not just analysts.
Rich, Customizable Experiences
ThoughtSpot provided customizable embedded analytics through a robust and mature SDK that allowed Navan to deeply integrate analytics into their own admin tool. This enabled both out-of-the-box and highly tailored experiences, letting users start with opinionated, pre-built dashboards and then customize, save, and share their own views and reports.
Product Roadmap Impact
With ThoughtSpot handling the analytics layer, Navan’s engineers could prioritize bringing in new and better data sources, while product and data teams could rapidly respond to customer feedback by creating or modifying reports in real time. This dramatically accelerated the pace of analytics innovation and allowed Navan to be more responsive to customer needs without heavy engineering involvement.
Customer Satisfaction
With Navan Advanced Analytics, customers could now explore data in real time, set up alerts, and share focused, visually appealing reports without relying on Excel exports or internal data teams. This led to higher adoption, more efficient teams, and positive feedback from enterprise customers who found the new analytics capabilities transformative for managing travel and expense programs.
💡 Ready to go from theory to traction? See how Navan scaled AI in Day 2 of our masterclass series.
3. ASK BOSCO: How to scale and win customers with conversational analytics
John Readman, Founder of ASK BOSCO, shared how their marketing and ecommerce analytics platform needed to scale embedded analytics for hundreds of clients. With the help of Spotter, they were able to offer a scalable, AI-powered embedded analytics solution that far exceeded the capabilities of traditional business intelligence solutions.
Rapid Go-to-Market
ASK BOSCO was able to achieve a rapid go-to-market strategy with ThoughtSpot after finding that previous tools like Looker Studio and PanIntelligence lacked scalability and robustness. Additionally, Tableau's commercial model wasn't a good fit for their growth plans. ThoughtSpot's technology, flexible licensing model, and strong product roadmap allowed ASK BOSCO to onboard hundreds of customers quickly and focus on its core business.
Key Insights
Customer Impact
The shift had a significant customer impact. Clients could now use natural language search to get real-time, self-service insights, which cut down the time to answer crucial business questions from weeks to mere minutes. This change empowered non-technical users, like CEOs and CMOs, to get answers during meetings, which led to faster, data-driven decisions and better customer satisfaction.
Resilience and support
ASK BOSCO also highlighted ThoughtSpot's excellent resilience and support. Founder John Readman noted that the customer success team was incredibly responsive whenever technical challenges came up. For example, during a big surge in customer onboarding, senior staff were brought in on a Sunday to solve issues before they could affect customers. This quick and effective support was a major differentiator compared to other tech partners.
Differentiation
Finally, embedded insights have been a key factor in ASK BOSCO's differentiation in the market. The partnership allows ASK BOSCO to offer AI-powered, conversational analytics directly within their platform through Spotter, branded as the ASK BOSCO AI agent. This feature provides unique, self-service, and actionable insights that go beyond standard dashboards. The partnership also gives ASK BOSCO access to ThoughtSpot's continuous product innovations, helping them stay at the forefront of marketing and e-commerce analytics to attract and keep more business.
“Just having access to more dashboards isn’t the answer. The answer is getting insights to the answers to the questions you want in an accessible format.”
💡 Is your strategy ready for the future analytics landscape? Finish Day 3 of our masterclass series strong with ASK BOSCO for clear next steps and your roadmap to real ROI.
Accelerate your product roadmap with embedded AI
Across industries, these product leaders agree: embedding ThoughtSpot has not only accelerated their product roadmaps but also empowered their teams and delivered transformative value to their customers. The common thread? A true partnership with ThoughtSpot, enabling rapid innovation, co-creation, and differentiation in a competitive market.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to create a competitive advantage with embedded analytics—view the masterclass sessions here.
