Gartner recently released its 2022 Magic Quadrant for Insight Engines, profiling 15 leading vendors in this market. Insight engines apply AI to search, extract, enrich, and index data from diverse sources to enable delivery of relevant insights to users and systems.
The report defines insight engines as platforms that “enable the interactive or proactive delivery or synthesis of information to people, and data to machines.” They draw data from many sources into a central index that can be queried to power search, Q&A, recommendations, and other applications.
Key findings:
– Coveo, Elastic, IBM, Lucidworks, Microsoft, Mindbreeze, and Sinequa are named as Leaders. They demonstrate strong market understanding and vision, solid sales execution and operations, and breadth of critical capabilities.
– IntraFind is named as the sole Challenger, showing excellent responsiveness and customer experience but falling behind Leaders in areas like marketing execution.
– Micro Focus, Expert.ai, EPAM, S&P Global, Squirro are Niche Players – meeting needs for certain use cases or regions.
– SearchBlox was added and Google dropped out since the 2021 report.
Trends:
– The market is growing as more data creates demand for insight engines to surface relevant information. Additional SaaS entrants indicate more competition ahead.
– Most vendors now offer cloud-based deployment, with flexibility for hybrid models. Open-source foundations like Elasticsearch underpin many products.
– Personalization, data enrichment, and connectivity to apps and touchpoints are key capabilities for providing contextualized experiences.
Advice for Buyers:
– Don’t just look at Leader status – Niche Players can better meet specialized needs. Evaluate vendors against your specific use cases and requirements.
– Extend evaluations beyond out-of-the-box capabilities to development ecosystems, customization options, and vertical expertise.
– Consider both broad horizontal platforms like Microsoft Search and specialized solutions purpose-built for business roles or functions.
The report provides an independent view of the relative strengths and cautions for all included vendors. It’s a valuable tool for application leaders looking to shortlist and evaluate insight engine options. Reach out for more details on the report findings and guidance on selection criteria.