Data Formulator – interactive AI agents for data analysis (Microsoft)
Hi everyone, we are excited to share with you our new release of Data Formulator. Starting from a dataset, you can communicate with AI agents with UI + natural language to explore data and create visualizations to discover new insights. Here's a demo video of the experience: https://github.com/microsoft/data-formulator/releases/tag/0..... This is a build-up from our release a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41907719). We spent a year exploring how to blend agent mode with interactions to allow you more easily "vibe" with your…
In plain words
Data Formulator is a Microsoft tool that combines AI agents with an interactive interface to help users analyze datasets and create visualizations. Users communicate with the AI through both natural language and UI interactions to explore data and uncover insights. The product balances automation with user control, enabling open-ended data exploration without requiring manual step-by-step operations or fully autonomous agent decisions.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi everyone, we are excited to share with you our new release of Data Formulator. Starting from a dataset, you can communicate with AI agents with UI + natural language to explore data and create visualizations to discover new insights. Here's a demo video of the experience: https://github.com/microsoft/data-formulator/releases/tag/0..... This is a build-up from our release a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41907719). We spent a year exploring how to blend agent mode with interactions to allow you more easily "vibe" with your data but still keeping in control. We don't think the future of data analysis is just "agent to do all for you from a high-level prompt" --- you should still be able to drive the open-ended exploration; but we also don't want you to do everything step-by-step. Thus we worked on this "interactive agent mode" for data analysis with some UI innovations. Our new demo features: * We want to let you import (almost) any data easily to get started exploration — either it's a screenshot of a web table, an unnormalized excel table, table in a chunk of text, a csv file, or a table in database, you should be able to load into the tool easily with a little bit of AI assistance. * We want you to easily choose between agent mode (more automation) vs interactive mode (more fine-grained control) yourself as you explore data. We designed an interface of "data threads": both your and agents' explorations are organized as threads so you can jump into any point to decide how you want to follow-up or revise using UI + NL instruction to provide fine-grained control. * The results should be easily interpretable. Data Formulator now presents "concept" behind the code generated by AI agents alongside code/explanation/data. Plus, you can compose a report easily based on your visualizations to share insights. We are sharing the online demo at https://data-formulator.ai/ for you to try! If you want more involvement and customization, checkout our source code https://github.com/microsoft/data-formulator and let's build something together as a community!
More ai this month
the category →
I trained a 125M-parameter transformer to autocomplete piano performances in real time (~108 notes/sec on an iPhone 15). The idea is basically GitHub Copilot or Tabnine, except instead of prompting it with code, you prompt it by playing a few notes on a MIDI piano. The model then continues what you played, entirely on-device. The app is free if anyone wants to try it. Happy to answer questions about the model, training, Core ML, or the many things that didn't work.
AI · 17d ago · simedw.com
Astute▲585Automate your B2B brand going viral, with new media creators
AI · 18d ago · company-app.joinastute.com
Hey HN, Henry from Cactus here! We previously released Cactus Needle, a 14MB agentic LLM for tool call, device use, and structured extraction for phones, wearables, smart homes, small robots and microcontrollers. We got really great feedback here, and have now incorporated the suggestions to release Needle 2. The whole model is a single 14MB binary that runs a full session in 28MB of RAM; 45m parameters at 2bit compression. Needle hits 500 tokens/sec decode speed on a Raspberry Pi 5, sits between 400-1,500 tokens/sec on VR devices like Meta Quest 3S and Apple Vision Pro, and ranges…
AI · 27d ago · cactuscompute.com
Launched alongside, November 2025
the whole month →
- IB
Life & fun · Nov 2025 · bitsnpieces.dev
- BBoing▲782
Life & fun · Nov 2025 · boing.greg.technology