SyncHub says AI queries drive demand for live data

Demand is rising for AI tools that let businesses query their own data in plain English, according to SyncHub. The New Zealand company says customers are moving beyond dashboards and static reports.

SyncHub connects more than 70 software-as-a-service platforms to reporting tools and AI systems. It says users are increasingly asking direct questions about sales, stock, staffing, invoices and performance through AI applications including its own AI Assistant, Claude and ChatGPT.

The shift reflects a change in how companies want to work with operational information. Instead of exporting CSV files or asking technical staff to write SQL queries, teams want direct answers from live business data.

SyncHub says the trend is being helped by Model Context Protocol, or MCP, which allows AI tools to connect more directly with business systems and data sources. It argues this gives users a way to retrieve answers from current operational data rather than relying on manual exports or reports that may already be out of date.

The approach depends on the quality of the underlying data. Many businesses operate across multiple cloud systems, including accounting, customer relationship management, human resources, inventory and timesheet platforms, each storing information in a different format.

Some software providers are starting to offer their own MCP servers, but SyncHub says these are limited to the data held in each individual platform. Its model is to aggregate data from multiple sources into one structured database so queries can span the wider business.

Database expansion

As part of that strategy, SyncHub recently released a Custom Database connector. It allows companies to query cloud data alongside on-premise systems, legacy databases and databases built for internally developed software.

Ben Liebert, Founder, SyncHub, said the connector was built in response to customer demand. "Although businesses lean on SaaS platforms for the majority of their software, many have also had to build custom software to meet their particular requirements. We had a lot of demand from customers who needed that data alongside their cloud data, so we built a connector for it," Liebert said.

SyncHub says it has recorded an increase in custom database connections since the product was introduced. It links that rise to the spread of AI coding tools, which it says are contributing to more companies building their own software and databases.

According to the company, that creates a familiar reporting problem. Even where bespoke tools are used, the resulting data still needs to be combined with finance, sales, staffing and other operational systems if managers are to get a complete view.

Liebert said customers want something simpler than another reporting layer. "What we're seeing is that people don't want another layer of dashboards if they still have to interpret everything themselves. They want to ask a direct question about their business and get a reliable answer back. That only works if the data underneath is clean, structured and properly connected. AI isn't magic. If the data foundation is poor, the answers will be poor too," Liebert said.

Reporting role

Traditional reporting tools still have a place, Liebert said, especially for dashboards and formal reporting. But he argued that plain-English querying is becoming the starting point when staff want a quick answer.

"For years, the default process was to open a dashboard, export a file, or find someone technical to write a query. MCP is speeding that up, because it lets businesses connect their structured data straight to the AI tools they're already using, whether that's our own AI Assistant or something like Claude," Liebert said.

One customer cited by SyncHub was Pooky, a UK business that has used the platform to improve access to data from its enterprise resource planning system. It later connected SyncHub to Claude through an MCP connector.

Benjamin Durrant, Business Solutions Architect, Pooky, said the impact had been significant for his team. "We joined SyncHub originally to achieve what seemed impossible: to get good structured data from our ERP. Since then we have used the built-in AI to help create SQL queries, which we now use for our daily KPIs. More recently we connected SyncHub to Claude using the MCP connector, and it's made getting insights a thousand times easier. We now have reports for every area of our business providing insights and tracking every day with little to no effort," Durrant said.

Founded in 2019, SyncHub says more than 500 businesses across 30 countries use its platform to connect cloud software with reporting tools, AI platforms and business intelligence systems.