Databricks launches Genie One AI coworker for businesses

Databricks has launched Genie One, an AI coworker for business teams, expanding its Genie suite.

Designed for staff in finance, sales, marketing and operations, Genie One lets users query company information, generate reports and automate workflows through natural language prompts. It can connect to structured and unstructured data held both within the Databricks platform and in external applications.

The launch also includes Genie Ontology, a context layer that draws on an organisation's data, documents, applications, tickets, chats and meetings. Databricks said the layer updates continuously so Genie One can generate responses and actions based on a broader set of internal information.

Databricks is also adding Genie Agents and Genie App Builder, alongside updates to Genie Code and a new tool called Genie ZeroOps. Together, the additions extend its push to sell AI tools not only to technical teams but also to business users who want to work directly with corporate data.

Context layer

Databricks argues that many AI assistants used in business settings struggle because important information is spread across multiple systems and is often poorly documented. In its view, that makes it harder for software to answer questions reliably in fields such as finance, operations and sales, where inaccurate outputs can have direct commercial consequences.

Its answer is to treat governed enterprise data as the main source of truth. Databricks said Genie Ontology continuously extracts business context from data in Databricks and connected workplace systems, allowing Genie One to retrieve answers from curated data through SQL rather than relying only on fragments drawn from documents.

According to Databricks, that approach should help users ask business questions and receive responses tied to the same governed data already used in day-to-day operations. Genie One can explain changes in margins, identify sales opportunities and assist finance teams with closing processes, it said.

"Most enterprise AI today is just guessing with false confidence. That is not good enough for business," said Ali Ghodsi, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Databricks.

"If you're a CFO and AI can't tell you why margins changed, or you're a sales leader and it can't find your next upsell, that's not an AI problem, that's a context problem. Genie Ontology continuously learns context from data everywhere, so our answers are much faster and our agents are more accurate. That's the difference between an AI chatbot and an agentic coworker who knows your business inside out - every metric, every data source, every answer. Every CEO and business leader should have Genie at their fingertips," Ghodsi said.

Broader suite

Genie One is available on the web and as native iOS and Android apps. Databricks said the latest version moves beyond the earlier Genie product, which focused on conversational analytics over data stored in Databricks, by linking users to a wider range of internal and external information sources.

Users can create documents and reports, monitor metrics through visual charts and graphs, set alerts, schedule tasks and trigger actions through connected tools. Databricks said Genie also links with major AI tools and more than 50 business applications and data systems, including Google Drive, Jira, Slack, Confluence and SharePoint.

Genie Agents lets teams save a Genie conversation as a reusable agent with the same sources, instructions and behaviour. Employees can also create and share agent skills to standardise answer formats and workflows across teams, Databricks said.

Genie App Builder is intended to help organisations create internal or customer-facing applications connected to governed enterprise data. Databricks said these applications operate under Unity Catalog permissions and access controls from the outset.

For data teams, Genie Code now includes a dedicated workspace for tracking progress, reviewing steps and moving between project threads. Genie ZeroOps, meanwhile, is designed to monitor data and AI assets such as pipelines, jobs, tables and machine learning models, and propose fixes when issues arise.

Customer use

Several customers outlined how they are using the broader Genie line in their organisations.

"Albertsons Companies is building Merchandising Intelligence to help merchants make faster, more explainable and more customer-relevant decisions across the 4Ps (product, pricing, promotions and placement) of merchandising. The initiative brings together trusted enterprise data, merchant expertise and AI-enabled insights to help teams better understand customer needs and create a more consistent shopping experience. Databricks provides a core foundation for this capability through the Lakehouse, Unity Catalog, AI Gateway and Genie, supporting governed data, scalable analytics, trusted AI access and merchant-friendly discovery in one platform. Genie plays an important role in making complex merchandising data easier for merchants to explore and understand in natural language, while the broader Databricks platform supports the end-to-end intelligence layer needed to move from data discovery to explainable recommendations and action," said Karthik Iyer, Group Vice President, Head of Merchandising, Transformation, and AI at Albertsons.

"Our investment in building the Uplight Data Platform on top of Databricks is paying off in powerful new ways. By bringing Genie One capabilities to our data, we're enabling teams across Uplight to explore, discover and innovate with more speed, confidence and creativity than ever before. This is the promise of data democratisation - enabling a culture where curiosity, data-informed decision-making and innovation can happen at every level of the company," said Christopher.

"At Foot Locker, Genie Agents are transforming how we lead. They provide our executives and business teams with a centralised space to harness AI-driven insights across every North American banner we operate. As we scale Genie to the enterprise, it's reshaping the way our business interacts with data and makes the decisions that matter most. Genie isn't just a tool; it's the engine driving self-service insights across our organisation," said Lakshminarayanan.

Databricks said Genie One, Genie Agents and Genie Code are generally available. Customers will receive up to USD $10 in free usage for each user each month, and the service does not use seat-based pricing, it added.