Hex Review 2026

Julius AI

Trending

Chat with your data & spreadsheets

Julius AI turns a spreadsheet, CSV or database connection into a conversation. Upload a file or paste in messy data and ask questions in plain English — Julius writes and runs the underlying Python analysis itself, then hands back a chart, a table or a written answer instead of a wall of code. What sets Julius apart from a generic chatbot is that it treats analysis as a process, not a single prompt: it plans the steps, executes them, checks the output makes sense and iterates if a chart looks wrong or a query returns something unexpected. That loop is what lets non-technical users get correct pivot tables, regressions and visualisations without ever opening a notebook. Founders, analysts and ops teams use it as a faster substitute for pestering a data analyst with one-off questions — connect the data once and keep asking follow-ups the way you would in a conversation with a colleague who happens to know Python.

Akkio

No-code predictive AI, now repositioned specifically for media agencies

Akkio lets non-technical users build machine learning models — churn prediction, lead scoring, revenue forecasting — through a drag-and-drop interface and conversational Chat Explore feature, connecting to live data sources like HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Sheets and Snowflake without writing code. A user uploads a CSV or connects a live source, and Akkio's guided templates walk through building a working predictive model in minutes rather than requiring a dedicated data science team. A significant repositioning happened through 2025-2026: Akkio has moved from a general-purpose no-code AI platform toward a focused offering for media agencies specifically, announcing a partnership with Havas in January 2026 as part of Havas's €400 million agentic AI investment, alongside existing relationships with agencies like Horizon Media. Its current feature set leans into audience-building, media planning, and marketing mix modeling (MMM) — conversational campaign analytics and automated reporting workflows purpose-built for agency use, rather than the broader general-business predictive analytics positioning it held previously. Pricing has become considerably less transparent alongside this shift: as of July 2026, Akkio gates virtually all pricing behind a "Contact Sales" form, with historical figures ($49/user/month Starter, scaling to $999/month tiers) no longer reflecting current, published rates. If you're an individual marketer or analyst outside the agency-specific use case Akkio has moved toward, tools like Julius AI or Hex may now be a more directly accessible fit; for media agencies specifically needing audience analytics and MMM with genuine partnership backing, Akkio's newer focus is worth a direct sales conversation.

ThoughtSpot

Conversational BI for the enterprise

ThoughtSpot is an enterprise business intelligence platform built around search-driven analytics: type or ask a question in natural language and get back a governed chart or dashboard pulled from the company's actual data warehouse, not a guess. Its AI layer, Sage, was the conversational front-end that popularised this natural-language search approach and has since been developed further into the platform's broader AI analyst capabilities. Unlike lightweight spreadsheet copilots, ThoughtSpot is designed for large, governed datasets — it sits on top of existing warehouses like Snowflake, BigQuery or Databricks and enforces row-level security and consistent metric definitions, so every answer traces back to a single source of truth rather than a spreadsheet someone edited last week. It's built for organisations that already have a data warehouse and want to put self-serve, natural-language analytics in front of non-technical staff — sales, marketing and ops teams asking questions without filing a ticket with the data team.

Formula Bot

Excel & Sheets formulas from text

Formula Bot solves a narrower but universally annoying problem: writing the right Excel or Google Sheets formula. Describe what you want in plain language — "sum column B where column A is 2025" — and it returns a working formula with an explanation of what each part does, so you are not just copy-pasting something you don't understand. Beyond formulas, it extends into a broader AI-for-spreadsheets toolkit: explaining an existing formula someone else wrote, generating VBA or Apps Script, and a chat-with-your-data mode for quick summaries directly inside a spreadsheet. It installs as an add-on for Excel and Google Sheets, so the workflow stays inside the tool people already use rather than pulling data into a separate app. It is aimed squarely at the person who knows what result they need but doesn't want to relearn spreadsheet syntax — marketers, ops staff and analysts who live in spreadsheets but aren't formula specialists.

Power BI Copilot

AI-generated DAX and visuals — but enabling it costs $5,258/month minimum

Power BI Copilot generates DAX formulas, builds visuals, summarizes data and writes natural-language narratives from your Power BI reports, using Azure OpenAI Service to translate plain-English prompts into actual Power BI actions — available in both Power BI Desktop and the Power BI Service. For an organization already invested in Power BI as its business intelligence layer, having an AI assistant that can write the DAX measure you're struggling to phrase correctly, rather than searching Stack Overflow for the syntax, is a genuinely significant productivity unlock for analysts who aren't DAX specialists. Here's the detail that catches a lot of people off guard, and it's worth understanding clearly before assuming Copilot is a simple per-user add-on the way Microsoft 365 Copilot is: enabling Power BI Copilot requires either Fabric capacity at the F64 tier or higher — which runs $5,258.88 per month — or Premium Per User (PPU) licensing at $20/user/month with a Fabric trial enabled and a Fabric administrator required to toggle on the Copilot tenant setting. There is no lower-cost, small-team entry point; this is fundamentally an enterprise-infrastructure decision, not a simple checkbox upgrade to an existing individual Power BI license. Once enabled through either path, Copilot itself carries no additional per-query charge — the cost is entirely in unlocking access via Fabric capacity or PPU licensing, not in metered usage afterward. That structure makes the real total cost heavily dependent on organization size: for a large enterprise already running substantial Fabric capacity for other workloads, the F64 tier may already be justified regardless of Copilot; for a smaller team evaluating Power BI Copilot specifically, PPU at $20/user/month is the more realistic entry point, and it's worth modeling total licensing cost carefully before assuming this is a lightweight add-on to an existing Power BI Pro subscription.

Julius AI

Trending

Chat with your data & spreadsheets

Julius AI turns a spreadsheet, CSV or database connection into a conversation. Upload a file or paste in messy data and ask questions in plain English — Julius writes and runs the underlying Python analysis itself, then hands back a chart, a table or a written answer instead of a wall of code. What sets Julius apart from a generic chatbot is that it treats analysis as a process, not a single prompt: it plans the steps, executes them, checks the output makes sense and iterates if a chart looks wrong or a query returns something unexpected. That loop is what lets non-technical users get correct pivot tables, regressions and visualisations without ever opening a notebook. Founders, analysts and ops teams use it as a faster substitute for pestering a data analyst with one-off questions — connect the data once and keep asking follow-ups the way you would in a conversation with a colleague who happens to know Python.