AWS and Smartsheet Enable AI Assistant to Access Work Management Data

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Smartsheet have partnered to help companies access their work management data through AWS’ generative artificial intelligence (AI) assistant.

This collaboration involves launching a connector that synchronizes data from Smartsheet’s enterprise work management platform into AWS’ generative AI assistant, Amazon Q Business, the companies said in a Tuesday (Oct. 8) press release.

With this connector, which is available to Amazon Q Business customers in public preview, these customers will be able to query their AI assistant for information managed in Smartsheet, according to the release.

“By integrating our flexible data model with Amazon Q Business, we’re unlocking access to work management data for our mutual customers so they can focus on driving business outcomes without worrying about where their data lives,” Ben Canning, senior vice president, product experiences at Smartsheet, said in the release.

This collaboration aims to help organizations make data-driven decisions by eliminating data silos — a common friction point in which data is isolated within multiple business applications, according to the release.

The new connector securely combines customers’ Smartsheet data with other data sources enabled in Amazon Q Business, the release said. Those sources may include Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Teams and AWS.

With this solution in place, users will be able to access insights from multiple data sources via Amazon Q Business, with the AI assistant performing deep searches within the data while also respecting access and permission levels, per the release.

“Many enterprises rely on Smartsheet as their central work collaboration hub, and they store billions of rows of data on the platform,” Dilip Kumar, vice president of Amazon Q Business at AWS, said in the release. “Enabling Amazon Q Business customers to simply, securely have conversations with their Smartsheet data helps turbocharge their productivity, analysis and decision-making.”

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon Q Business in April, saying the AI assistant helps employees get answers to questions about company policies, product information, business results, code base, employees and other topics based on business data.

Amazon Q Business connects to more than 40 commonly used business tools, maintains security and privacy, and enables users to access business insights, the company said at the time in a press release.