Databricks Acquisition Adds Spreadsheet Powers to Genie

Databricks has announced the acquisition of billion-row spreadsheet company Row Zero, aiming to expand the capabilities of its Genie AI co-worker.

Row Zero picks up where Excel leaves off - the latter's limit of 1,048,576 rows is (we hear) insufficient for some purposes and the more specialist software can cope with 'billions' of rows. It also updates automatically from connected data warehouses, and supports enterprise security controls. Row Zero runs in the cloud, making use of its larger computing, memory and connectivity resources, and 'instantly' performs analytical operations that would take 'minutes or hours' in Excel and Tableau.

Row Zero's team, including former AWS and Tableau engineers, is joining Databricks to work on the Genie development, while Row Zero will now be available to all customers of its new owner, and will continue to feature support for other data sources. Databricks says Genie can already analyze why margins changed or produce a document on sales pipeline opportunities, but integrating Row Zero will add 'a familiar spreadsheet interface that business teams can use to explore, model, and collaborate.'

According to Databricks 'after four decades, spreadsheets remain the most broadly used analytics tool in the business world... and the primary engine of business decision-making, despite continuous advances in the data and analytics market.' However their prevalence creates major security and governance challenges for the modern enterprise - especially when companies deploy agents that analyze, model and act on business data - 'they can't afford to have those agents operating on sensitive data of unknown lineage and quality.' Row Zero 'closes this gap by offering a scalable spreadsheet that connects directly to live, governed data,' which means teams 'can work the way they always have, backed by built-in security and governance.'

Patrick Wendell, Co-founder and VP of Engineering at Databricks comments: 'Genie is helping make every knowledge worker dramatically more productive and impactful. As more finance, operations, and go-to-market teams adopt Genie, incorporating a seamless spreadsheet experience is a must-have,. We're super excited to bring the Row Zero team to Databricks, helping us continue to evolve Genie's capabilities to become the go-to AI coworker for every enterprise team.'

Breck Fresen (pictured), founder and CEO of Row Zero adds: 'Joining Databricks accelerates our vision of giving business users the spreadsheet they deserve: secure, connected, scalable, and deeply integrated with AI agents.'

Web sites are at www.databricks.com and www.rowzero.io .