From how Alkemi works to how it keeps your data secure, this guide explains how teams use it to make faster, smarter, and safer decisions with AI.

What is Alkemi?

Alkemi is a secure AI platform that bridges the gap between your company’s data and the people who need answers from it.

For business users, Alkemi powers DataLab, a private AI workspace where any employee can ask questions in plain English and get accurate, transparent answers from company data. It combines the clarity of BI with the ease of AI conversation, turning data into a daily decision-making tool.

For data providers, Alkemi enables a new kind of access — AI-ready data sharing. Instead of distributing static files, providers can offer secure, read-only connections that let AI tools and business teams analyze data without ever downloading it. This model creates a new revenue stream while keeping full control and compliance intact. 

Through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Alkemi connects trusted data sources with innovative teams and AI applications, creating a transparent, governed ecosystem where quality data fuels better, faster decisions for everyone.

Learn more about Alkemi for data providers. 

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What Is DataLab?

Alkemi’s DataLab is a private, AI-powered analytics workspace that lets every employee chat directly with company data. It combines the accuracy of business intelligence with the speed and usability of modern AI.

Instead of building dashboards or writing SQL, users ask questions in plain English:

  • “Which campaigns drove the highest ROI last month?”
  • “Show me customer churn by region.”

DataLab runs the queries, shows the logic behind each answer, and keeps every action inside your company’s secure environment.

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Who is Alkemi for?

Alkemi is built for teams that want faster, safer, more transparent data access, from analysts to executives. Alkemi serves both technical and non-technical users, making data accessible without compromising governance.

For example, here’s how a handful of different professionals might use Alkemi’s DataLab:

  • BI Analyst: Reduce backlog by letting non-technical teams self-serve answers, freeing them to focus on modeling and deeper strategy
  • Marketing Director: Instantly see campaign performance, CAC trends, and channel ROI without waiting on reports
  • Product Manager: Track feature usage, retention, and engagement directly from the product database.
  • Revenue Operations Leader: Combine CRM, marketing, and finance data to diagnose pipeline bottlenecks and forecast revenue
  • CFO: Views real-time margin, burn rate, or variance to budget without exporting data to spreadsheets
  • Data Scientist: Quickly validate data integrity, prototype models, and share logic transparently with business stakeholders

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How does Alkemi work?

Alkemi connects your company’s governed data with AI-powered analysis, allowing you to ask natural-language questions and get accurate, verifiable answers in seconds.

When you upload or connect your data (via CSV or database integration), Alkemi’s conversational AI engine indexes it securely inside your private environment. When you ask a question, the AI retrieves and interprets the relevant data, then shows its reasoning transparently, including SQL logic and data references.

There’s no need to know SQL or rely on analysts. Alkemi turns your data into a private, intelligent workspace where any employee can chat directly with their data safely and at scale.

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Where do Alkemi’s answers come from?

Every Alkemi answer comes directly from your connected company data — never the public web. When you ask a question, Alkemi translates it into the correct query, runs it securely, and explains the logic. You see not only the result but also how it was reached.

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How does Alkemi keep data secure?

Security is built into Alkemi’s architecture:

  • Inference security: Alkemi’s models never train on or export your data
  • Private environment: All queries and results stay within your company’s infrastructure
  • Governed access: Alkemi mirrors your existing permissions
  • Traceability: Every AI answer links to its data source and logic

Your data never leaves your environment. No LLM gets to learn from it.

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What is “governed data”?

Governed data is data that’s properly managed, documented, and protected — not hidden in spreadsheets or shadow systems. It has clear rules for ownership, access, and quality.

When Alkemi connects to governed data, it follows those rules automatically. That means insights are reliable, auditable, and compliant, the foundation for trustworthy AI.

Read more about “governed data” and other key AI terms.

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How is Alkemi different from ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a public, general-purpose model.

Alkemi is a secure, enterprise-grade AI workspace built for your business data.

It's a win-win: You can choose to use ChatGPT with Alkemi, supporting a familiar experience for employees, while prioritizing security for the business. Your options: 

  1. Chat with your data (just like you would with ChatGPT’s conversational AI) within Alkemi’s DataLab
  2. Connect your ChatGPT (or Claude or others) to Alkemi’s DataLab so your company data has all the protections of Alkemi, but through the ChatGPT interface, with all your custom GPTs and other systems in place. 

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What happens if you put company data in ChatGPT?

Uploading company data into public AI models risks exposing sensitive information to those systems. Even if terms say data isn’t stored, it may still be logged or used to improve the model.

That means you could be handing your intellectual property (and your competitive advantage) to an external provider.

Alkemi eliminates that risk by keeping all AI computation inside your private environment.

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Does Alkemi store or train on my data?

No. Alkemi does not train, fine-tune, or retain your data. All computation happens inside your environment or a dedicated private instance.

  • Your data never leaves your controlled infrastructure.
  • The AI models access it only for inference (read-only).
  • No queries or results are used to train future models.
  • All sessions remain fully auditable and governed under your existing security policies.

In short: Your data stays yours. Alkemi never learns from it, copies it, or sends it anywhere else.

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How do you connect your database to Alkemi’s DataLab?

You can connect your data in two ways:

  1. Upload a CSV file (perfect for quick tests or prototypes)
  2. Integrate directly with live databases (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, etc.) using secure, read-only credentials.

Alkemi automatically maps your schema and enables natural-language querying in minutes.

Watch as Alkemi Co-Founder & CTO Maxwell Folley demonstrates how quick and easy it is to connect a data source and start using DataLab: 

https://www.loom.com/share/1db5b66be209458cbfc2ef43896835be?sid=1b6f3eb4-8c40-4733-bc87-1501c5b7205c

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How can I try Alkemi’s DataLab?

  1. Start a free trial
  2. Explore Alkemi’s DataLab with demo data or upload a CSV of your own
  3. Start chatting with your dataset

Ask things like:

  • “What were our top 10 products by revenue last quarter?”
  • “Show me monthly growth by customer segment.”
  • “Which channels had the best return on ad spend?”

Try Alkemi free →

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What kinds of questions can Alkemi’s DataLab answer?

Alkemi is built for any team that works with data — not just analysts. You can ask plain-English questions across marketing, product, finance, sales, and operations.

Marketing

  • “Which campaigns drove the highest ROI last month?”
  • “How is our website traffic trending week to week?”
  • “What’s our conversion rate by channel?”
  • “Which audiences are most likely to click and buy?”
  • “What keywords are delivering the lowest CPA?”

Product

  • “Which features are used most by active customers?”
  • “How many users completed onboarding last week?”
  • “What's the average session time by device?”
  • “Did engagement increase after our latest update?”

Sales

  • “What’s our current pipeline by stage and region?”
  • “Which deals are most likely to close this quarter?”
  • “Who are our top performing reps?”
  • “What’s our average deal size by industry?”
  • “Which accounts are at risk of churn?”

Finance

  • “What’s our revenue trend compared to last year?”
  • “Which cost centers are exceeding budget?”
  • “What’s our cash burn rate this quarter?”
  • “Show me gross margin by product line.”
  • “Forecast next quarter’s expenses based on historical averages.”

Operations & People

  • “How many support tickets are open right now?”
  • “Which teams are missing SLAs most often?”
  • “What’s our NPS trend over time?”
  • “How has headcount changed this year?”
  • “Where are response times improving the most?”

If your company tracks it, Alkemi can analyze it.

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Can Alkemi replace a BI team?

Alkemi doesn’t replace BI teams; it augments them. It moves everyday, repetitive questions out of the backlog and into self-service, while BI and data experts focus on higher-value work.

Example scenarios:

  • Before Alkemi: Marketing waits two weeks for a “CPA by channel” report
  • After Alkemi: Marketing runs it in seconds, while the BI team focuses on cohort modeling

or

  • Before Alkemi: Executives rely on static dashboards that go stale
  • After Alkemi: They ask follow-ups dynamically, such as “What if we remove EMEA?” and get responses with governed-data accuracy.

BI teams remain critical for:

  • Defining data models and sources
  • Maintaining governance and standards
  • Ensuring accuracy and cross-functional alignment

Alkemi reduces friction and delay, giving every employee access to trustworthy insights instantly.

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How much does Alkemi cost?

Alkemi has a free trial and offers flexible plans for any size organization:

  • Free Trial — upload a CSV, connect your data, explore demo data, and more
  • Team Plan — perfect for small departments.
  • Enterprise Plan — full integrations, SSO, and admin controls.

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Have more questions? Contact us!

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