Report:
The Forrester Wave™: Business Intelligence Platforms, Q2 2025
How does Forrester define the Business Intelligence Platforms market in 2025?
Business intelligence (BI) continues to be a crucial enabler in the data-to-decisions process essential for data-driven enterprises. Despite predictions of 'BI is dead' for 20 years, BI remains vital, with generative AI leveling the playing field as vendors integrate similar LLM capabilities rather than replacing BI. Given the maturity and commoditization of BI technology, along with numerous vendor acquisitions, platform selection now focuses less on individual capabilities and more on how vendor strategy and positioning align with enterprise business requirements. The evaluation identifies nine significant BI platform providers across Leaders, Strong Performers, and Contenders categories.
Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Business Intelligence Platforms, Q2 2025 in 2025
- Publication Date: 10-Apr-2025
- Document ID: 623e3263
- Summary: In our evaluation of business intelligence platforms providers, we identified the most significant ones and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps you select the right one for your needs.
- Authors: Boris Evelson, Aaron Katz, Katie Vincent, Jen Barton
How did the Business Intelligence Platforms market evolve in 2025?
- BI continues to be a crucial enabler in the data-to-decisions process for data-driven enterprises
- GenAI is leveling the playing field as all BI vendors integrate generative and agentic AI capabilities based on the same LLMs
- BI technology has reached maturity, often to a point of commoditization
- Numerous acquisitions of independent BI vendors have occurred over the past five years
- Selecting a BI platform is now less about individual platform capabilities and more about vendor strategy alignment
- Most hyperscalers and large ERP/CRM vendors have acquired and integrated platforms from leading BI vendors
- The 'embedded vs. best-of-breed' decision is no longer relevant
- Nine vendors evaluated across Leaders, Strong Performers, and Contenders categories
- Evaluation based on current offering, strategy, and customer feedback
What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?
- A general-purpose, standalone enterprise BI platform that can be used to build and deploy any BI application, not embedded in transactional/operational applications
- Vendor actively markets standalone BI platform to users not currently using vendor's other enterprise platforms
- At least 25% of vendor's BI customers use platform to analyze data from business applications sold and supported by different vendors
- Platform comes packaged out of the box with native augmented BI capabilities (single-click advanced functions like anomaly detection, top influencers, conversational UI with NLQ and NLG)
- Platform has capabilities to serve business users beyond professional data and analytics people
- $90 million or more in revenues from the BI product with significant presence in enterprises and large deployments (1,000+ users)
- Product frequently mentioned by Forrester clients as one they are considering or shortlisting, and mentioned by other vendors as a competitor
What are the common features of top products in the Business Intelligence Platforms space?
No common features specified.
Scope Exclusions
- BI platforms embedded exclusively in transactional, operational, or domain-focused enterprise business applications
- Vendors that don't actively market standalone BI platforms to users outside their existing ecosystem
- Vendors where less than 25% of BI customers analyze data from non-vendor business applications
- Platforms targeting only professional data and analytics people, not business users
- Vendors with less than $90 million in BI product revenues
- Vendors without significant presence in enterprise and large enterprise deployments (1,000+ users)
- Platforms lacking native augmented BI capabilities (single-click advanced functions, conversational UI)
Inclusion Criteria
Vendors must, among other requirements:
- General-purpose, standalone enterprise BI platform that can build and deploy any BI application
- At least 25% of vendor's BI customers use the platform to analyze data from business applications sold by different vendors
- Platform includes native augmented BI capabilities (single-click advanced functions, conversational UI with NLQ and NLG)
- Platform targets business users, not just data or analytics professionals
- $90 million or more in revenues from the BI product
- Significant presence in enterprises and large enterprises with deployments of 1,000+ users
- Strong mindshare among Forrester's enterprise clients and frequently mentioned by competitors
Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting
- Ambient (embedded) BI — 7%
- Augmented BI/advanced analytics — 5%
- BI fabric/headless BI — 5%
- Hybrid deployment options — 2%
- AWS deployment options — 2%
- Azure deployment options — 2%
- Google Cloud deployment options — 2%
- Direct query vs. ingest — 3%
- Full data stack — 2%
- GenAI functionality — 2%
- GenAI architecture — 2%
- GenAI domain specialization — 2%
- GenAI for enterprise data — 2%
- GenAI-based NLQ — 2%
- GenAI NLQ accuracy — 2%
- GenAI NLG — 2%
- GenAI guardrails — 2%
- Globalization — 5%
- Oracle business application integration — 2%
- SAP business application integration — 2%
- Salesforce business application integration — 2%
- Lineage and explainability — 7%
- No-code integration with business apps — 2%
- Personalization — 10%
- Security and compliance — 10%
- Semantic layer — 10%
- Usage analytics — 4%
Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting
- Vision — 25%
- Innovation — 20%
- Roadmap — 20%
- Partner ecosystem — 20%
- Pricing flexibility and transparency — 5%
- Supporting services and offerings — 10%
FAQs
Q: What does this research cover?
A: This research evaluates nine leading business intelligence platform providers across three categories: current offering capabilities, strategic positioning, and customer feedback. The evaluation focuses on general-purpose, standalone enterprise BI platforms with augmented BI capabilities that target business users and have significant market presence ($90M+ in BI revenue). The report analyzes vendor strengths, weaknesses, and strategic differentiation, with particular attention to emerging trends like generative AI integration, semantic layers, embedded analytics, and deployment flexibility.
Q: Who should use this research?
A: Technology, data, and analytics leaders should use this research when selecting a BI platform vendor. The report helps buyers identify platforms that align with their specific business requirements, including: 1) Organizations partnered with hyperscalers or using leading ERP/CRM platforms who should consider native BI options; 2) Enterprises requiring hybrid cloud/on-premises deployments; 3) Organizations seeking specific architectural differentiators like full data management capabilities, API-first architecture, enterprise-grade semantic layers, or translytical (read/write) capabilities. The report provides vendor comparisons, customer feedback insights, and purchase considerations to inform platform selection decisions.
Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?
A: All vendors included must offer: 1) A general-purpose, standalone enterprise BI platform capable of building any BI application, marketed to users beyond the vendor's ecosystem, with at least 25% of customers analyzing non-vendor application data; 2) Native augmented BI capabilities including single-click advanced functions (anomaly detection, top influencers) and conversational UI with natural language query (NLQ) and natural language generation (NLG); 3) Capabilities serving business users, not just data/analytics professionals; 4) Minimum $90 million in BI product revenues with significant enterprise presence and large deployments (1,000+ users); 5) Strong mindshare among Forrester clients and recognition as a competitor by other vendors in the market.
Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?
A:
- Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) and Spotfire - No longer meet general-purpose criteria as vendors don't actively position/promote/sell platforms outside existing ecosystems despite technical capability
- SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) and SAS Visual Analytics - Don't meet general-purpose criteria as vendors don't actively position/promote/sell outside existing ecosystems
- Sisense - Now mostly targets embedded BI opportunities rather than general-purpose enterprise BI use cases
- Platforms embedded exclusively in business applications without standalone marketing
- Vendors with less than $90 million BI product revenue
- Platforms lacking native augmented BI capabilities (conversational UI, single-click advanced analytics)
- Vendors without significant enterprise presence or large deployments (1,000+ users)
- Products not frequently mentioned by Forrester clients or competitors
Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?
A:
- Platforms embedded in hyperscaler platforms or business applications - Consider native BI platforms if strategically partnered with a hyperscaler or using leading ERP/CRM platforms, as embedded vs. best-of-breed distinction is no longer relevant
- Hybrid cloud/on-premises deployment requirements - Seek platforms deployable on-premises and on any cloud if leveraging multiple cloud platforms or storing data on-premises for regulatory/budget reasons
- Architectural differentiators - Evaluate capabilities deeply ingrained in native architecture: 1) full data management and data fabric native to BI platform, 2) native API-first architecture for embedded analytics, 3) enterprise-grade semantic layer for genAI applications, 4) translytical (read/write) architecture for low-code app development
- Vendor ecosystem alignment - Assess how vendor's existing technology ecosystem (hyperscaler, ERP/CRM platform) aligns with your enterprise infrastructure
- GenAI foundation requirements - Consider vendors with robust semantic layers as foundation for effective genAI-based conversational applications
- Vendor risk management - Evaluate vendor size, market position, and long-term viability in a mature, commoditized market
Q: How has the Business Intelligence Platforms market evolved in 2025?
A:
- Generative AI is leveling the playing field as all BI vendors integrate similar genAI and agentic AI capabilities based on the same LLMs
- BI technology has reached maturity to the point of commoditization
- Numerous acquisitions of independent BI vendors have occurred over the past five years
- Hyperscalers and large ERP/CRM vendors have acquired and integrated leading BI platforms, making embedded vs. best-of-breed decisions less relevant
- Selection criteria has shifted from individual platform capabilities to vendor strategy alignment with enterprise requirements
- Conversational UI capability is becoming table stakes for BI vendors
- Architectural differentiators (data fabric, API-first, semantic layer, translytical architecture) are harder to replicate than core BI features
- Decline in on-premises deployments though some enterprises still require hybrid cloud/on-premises options for regulatory or budget reasons
Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?
A: Strength of Offering (vertical axis) measures the vendor's current product capabilities including technical features like ambient BI, augmented analytics, genAI functionality, deployment options, security, semantic layer, and integration capabilities. Strength of Strategy (horizontal axis) evaluates the vendor's future direction including vision, innovation pace, roadmap clarity, partner ecosystem strength, pricing models, and support services. Current Offering focuses on what the platform can do today, while Strategy assesses how well-positioned the vendor is for future market needs.
Reference
- Forrester, The Forrester Wave™: Business Intelligence Platforms, Q2 2025, 10-Apr-2025, ID 623e3263
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