Smartsheet vsActual: AI agents track company strategy and suggest fixes. Smartsheet has launched vsActual, a standalone AI-native application in which agents monitor company-wide strategy, flag problems and recommend fixes. It pulls data from Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and Workday. What happened. Work management software vendor Smartsheet has launched vsActual, a standalone "AI-native" application that helps executives oversee company-wide strategies. Its AI agents monitor progress, flag problems and recommend fixes. Computerworld reports that the product was announced on Wednesday at Smartsheet's Engage event, and that it sits apart from Smartsheet's core work management software. vsActual pulls data from a range of business systems, including Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and Workday, as well as work management tools such as Smartsheet itself. Its agents can act on natural language prompts from users or run automatically in the background. The product includes several specialised agents. An intake agent works from existing material, such as presentation decks and spreadsheets, to build a "plan of record" covering goals, timelines, and budget and capacity limits. A planning agent handles capacity planning and scenario modelling, and can be invoked when a plan needs to change. A further drift agent is part of the set, though the available reporting does not give its full remit. Why it matters. The significance here is less about another dashboard and more about how strategy is maintained. Traditionally, a strategic plan is a document that is reviewed periodically and quickly falls out of step with reality. By turning existing decks and spreadsheets into a structured, machine-readable plan of record, and then keeping that plan under continuous watch, vsActual points towards strategy as a live operating system rather than an annual exercise. For leaders in digital transformation, the combination of cross-system data access and agents that can rerun scenarios when conditions shift could change how quickly organisations respond to resourcing pressures. The operating-model question becomes who owns the plan of record, how often it is challenged, and which decisions the agents are permitted to recommend versus execute. The renascence take. Most coverage will treat this as a question of whether AI can spot when a project drifts off course. The more interesting risk is what the system is anchored to. A plan of record built from existing decks inherits every unexamined assumption those decks contain, and monitoring agents will then measure progress against those assumptions rather than against current customer needs. The first plan becomes the reference point, and reference points are sticky: this is anchoring at organisational scale. An agent that flags deviations from a flawed baseline will simply make a flawed strategy run more efficiently. Customer-obsessed operators should make assumptions explicit before ingesting any legacy document, and schedule regular human challenges to the plan itself, not just to its progress. Treat the agent as a tool for testing strategy, not for defending it. This briefing was written by its Newsdesk, synthesising reporting from the outlets below. Follow the links for the original coverage. Questions Renascence get on this topic. vsActual is a standalone AI-native application from Smartsheet, announced at its Engage event, that helps executives oversee company-wide strategies. It sits apart from Smartsheet's core work management software. More in AI Stay ahead of CX Get the signal, not the noise. The stories shaping customer experience - plus the Journal and Experience Loom - in your inbox.

Analytics and data science news for the week of November 6; updates from Databricks, Ocient, Smartsheet & more - Solutions Review. Welcome to this week's roundup of the latest developments in analytics and data science. For the week of November 6, industry leaders including Databricks, Ocient, and Smartsheet have announced significant updates and innovations enhancing data management, processing, and collaboration capabilities. In this edition of Solutions Review, Earth News bring you the key highlights and insights shaping the data science landscape, spotlighting advancements that promise to streamline workflows and drive smarter business decisions. Stay informed with the essential news powering the future of analytics. Analytics industry advances highlighted in latest updates from Databricks and Ocient. Databricks has unveiled several pivotal enhancements to its Lakehouse Platform, driving more efficient data processing and improving collaborative analytics workflows. Among the most notable is the integration of advanced AI-powered optimization techniques that reduce query time by up to 35%. The update also introduces enhanced support for real-time analytics, empowering data teams to deploy machine learning models faster and with increased accuracy. These strides underline Databricks' commitment to blending data engineering, data science, and business analytics into a seamless experience. Meanwhile, Ocient has made headlines with its latest breakthroughs in high-performance data warehouse solutions tailored for ultra-large datasets. Their new release boasts: * Scalable architecture designed for petabyte-scale analytics. * Improved SQL engine capabilities that accelerate complex query execution. * Advanced security features ensuring robust data governance and compliance. These innovations position Ocient as a formidable player in sectors demanding stringent performance and security, such as telecommunications and finance, where massive data volumes and rapid insight generation are critical. Smartsheet's new data collaboration features enhance workflow efficiency. Smartsheet has rolled out a suite of innovative data collaboration tools designed to streamline team workflows and boost productivity. The new features focus on enhancing real-time data sharing while maintaining robust security controls, empowering businesses to make faster, data-driven decisions. Key functionalities include dynamic data linking that ensures updates across sheets happen instantly, and collaborative data workspaces where teams can co-author and comment directly within datasets. Additionally, Smartsheet introduces improved integration capabilities with popular analytics platforms, enabling seamless data imports and exports that reduce manual data handling. These advancements offer users the ability to: * Automate data synchronization across multiple projects * Monitor workflow progress with customizable dashboards * Assign granular user permissions for enhanced data governance | Feature | Benefit | | Dynamic Data Linking | Instant updates across sheets | | Collaborative Workspaces | Real-time teamwork on data | | Enhanced Integration | Smooth data flow with analytics tools | Expert recommendations for leveraging emerging data science tools this week. Stay ahead by integrating the latest AI-powered features from Databricks into your analytics workflows. Their recent platform enhancements prioritize seamless collaboration between data engineers and analysts, simplifying the deployment of machine learning models at scale. Experts suggest focusing on the new AutoML capabilities combined with Delta Lake's real-time data ingestion, which significantly reduces latency in predictive analytics. Adoption of these tools enables companies to unlock actionable insights faster while maintaining data integrity. Meanwhile, cutting-edge advancements from Ocient and Smartsheet are reshaping data orchestration and project tracking. Ocient's scalable SQL engine now supports complex queries on massive datasets without compromising speed, a critical asset for enterprises grappling with big data challenges. Smartsheet's integration of AI-driven resource allocation tools allows teams to dynamically optimize workloads, boosting productivity and reducing bottlenecks. Below is a quick reference table summarizing these features for quick evaluation: | Tool | Key Feature | Recommended Use | | Databricks AutoML | Automated model building | Rapid prototyping in ML projects | | Ocient Scalable SQL | High-speed analytics on large data | Big data querying with minimal lag | | Smartsheet AI Tools | / | | Tool | Key Feature | Recommended Use | | Databricks AutoML | Automated model building | Rapid prototyping in ML projects | | Ocient Scalable SQL | High-speed analytics on large data | Big data querying with minimal lag | | Smartsheet AI Tools | AI-driven resource allocation | Dynamic workload optimization in teams | If you need any enhancements, styling improvements, or additional content for this section, feel free to ask! Key takeaways. As the data and analytics landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace, staying informed about the latest developments is essential for professionals across industries. This week's updates from Databricks, Ocient, Smartsheet, and other key players highlight ongoing innovations aimed at enhancing data processing, analytics capabilities, and collaboration. Be sure to keep monitoring Solutions Review for the most current information and expert insights as these technologies advance and shape the future of data science.

Smartsheet adds AI agents & controls to work platform. Fri, 6th Nov 2026 (Today) Smartsheet has introduced new AI agents, integrations and security controls to its work management platform. The updates were unveiled at the company's annual ENGAGE customer conference. The additions include agent-based workflow tools for routine project tasks, new connections to business software platforms, and governance features designed to give IT teams more oversight of how AI uses company data. The product changes are intended to address what Smartsheet calls "execution drift" - the gap between planned work and actual delivery. As businesses add more AI tools, partners and systems, the company argued, they can lose visibility over ownership, delays and recent project changes. Among the main launches were Agentic Workflows, which let users turn plain-language requests into recurring automated tasks. These workflows can generate items such as weekly project summaries or checks on risks and dependencies using live project data and existing user permissions. Smartsheet also launched specialised AI agents for more targeted tasks. The Creation Agent builds project structures such as sheets, dashboards, reports and automations from a stated goal, while the Data Quality Agent reviews sheets and flags issues by severity, either on demand or on a schedule. Both tools are now available. Data links Smartsheet has added native integrations with ServiceNow, Microsoft Dynamics 365, HubSpot and Workday. These are designed to keep data synchronised between systems without manual updates. It also announced an Integration Agent in early access. Starting with GitHub, Zendesk, Airtable and Monday.com, the feature is intended to let customers bring in data from external tools through a natural-language request rather than a longer manual integration project. Smartsheet said it already connects 277 billion rows of work data each month across its platform. The security and governance updates focused on oversight of AI activity and data handling. Smartsheet said it had obtained ISO/IEC 42001 certification for responsible AI management and completed an IRAP assessment against the Australian government's security manual. It also launched Security Event Streaming, which sends audit events to monitoring tools including Splunk and Microsoft Sentinel in near real time. Another new feature, Data Classification, allows administrators to set sensitivity labels such as General, Confidential or protected health information, with reporting and audit trails for any changes. Smartsheet cited IBM research showing that 68% of breached organisations lacked AI governance to manage AI or detect unauthorised use. Pratima Arora, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Smartsheet, said the company sees a persistent gap between AI adoption and the controls needed around it. "Most organizations have AI in one place, their data in another and governance as an afterthought. Teams still spend hours on status reports and follow-ups, and IT struggles to see what AI is doing with company data," said Pratima Arora, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Smartsheet. "Today we're putting AI agents on that routine work, connecting data across the tools teams already use, and adding the security and governance controls that keep every AI action inside the rules you set," Arora said. Planning product Alongside the platform updates, Smartsheet also introduced vsActual, an AI-native planning and execution product. The tool is designed to show leaders whether work is tracking against priorities and identify delivery gaps before they become harder to address. The launch builds on a broader push by Smartsheet to position its software between spreadsheets and more rigid project management systems. The company said teams use its platform to plan programmes, track work across departments, automate routine processes and monitor progress. Wayne Kurtzman, Research Vice President at IDC, said organisations are increasingly focused on whether AI systems remain aligned with business plans, rather than on productivity gains alone. "Enterprises are discovering that the hard part of AI is not productivity gains; it is keeping work aligned with their plans," said Wayne Kurtzman, Research Vice President at IDC. "As agents, systems, integrations and partners multiply, teams need AI to draw on real data, content and context across the tools they already use, under the governance they've already set. Smartsheet is addressing this challenge directly, helping organizations move AI from experimentation to dependable, strategic work," Kurtzman said.