AdminOrganization settings

Configure AI features for your organization

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Several features in Sigma use AI to accelerate insights and tasks that you might perform in Sigma:

The use of AI features is subject to the following disclaimer.

To use AI-enabled features in Sigma, do the following:

  1. Set up an AI provider
  2. Manage access to AI features
  3. If Sigma Assistant is enabled, decide which data sources to use with Assistant
  4. (Optional) Review data access for AI features

User requirements

You must be assigned the Admin account type.

Set up an AI provider

When you set up an AI provider in Sigma, you connect Sigma to either an external AI service or a data platform with access to specific AI models that Sigma can use:

Sigma uses a reasoning model for AI-powered features, and an embeddings model to create embeddings of your documents for semantic search. The models that Sigma uses for AI-powered features depend on your AI provider. You cannot choose which model Sigma uses. To review the models that Sigma uses for each provider, including deprecated and planned models, see Supported AI models.

Warehouse agents do not require an AI provider and instead use the AI models configured for the agents in your data platform.

Manage access to AI features

Control who can access different AI features by enabling feature permissions on different account types assigned to users:

AI featureAccount type permission that enables use
Sigma Assistant 1Use Assistant
Sigma agents 2Manage agents
Formula assistantUse AI with formulas
Explain this chartExplain charts with AI

1Depending on what you want to do with Sigma Assistant, the ability to use it can require additional account type permissions and document access. For example, to use Assistant to build a dashboard, a user must be able to edit a workbook draft, which requires the Create, edit, and publish workbooks permission and Can edit workbook access.

2You can only restrict access to Sigma agents by managing access to the workbooks that contain agents. You can restrict access to who can create Sigma agents.

For more details, including which license tiers have access to these permissions, see License and account type overview.

Choose data sources for Sigma Assistant

You can configure Sigma Assistant to use only specific data sources or any data sources available to users by default. Users can always manually choose a source for Assistant to use from the sources that they have access to.

All sources (Beta)

Assistant uses all available data sources. When a user asks a question, Assistant selects from any data source that the user has access to.

Recommended when your data sources are governed through data and document access, and you want Assistant to use any data source that a user can already query.

Specific sources

Assistant uses only the data sources that you configure. When a user asks a question, Assistant evaluates the configured sources and selects a data source.

Recommended when you want Assistant to answer from a curated set of sources by default, such as endorsed data models with descriptions and metrics.

With either option, Assistant respects each user’s existing access to data. See Review data access for AI features.

These data source settings only apply to Sigma Assistant when used from Sigma Home. When you use Sigma Assistant in a workbook, whether to explore and analyze workbook data or to build dashboards and apps, Assistant can access any data source that the user can access.

Select all data sources for Sigma Assistant

This documentation describes one or more public beta features that are in development. Beta features are subject to quick, iterative changes; therefore the current user experience in the Sigma service can differ from the information provided in this page.

This page should not be considered official published documentation until Sigma removes this notice and the beta flag on the corresponding feature(s) in the Sigma service. For the full beta feature disclaimer, see Beta features.

You can choose which data sources Sigma Assistant uses to answer questions. By default, Sigma Assistant has access to all data sources that a user has access to. Unless you configure specific data sources, Sigma automatically indexes up to 2,000 of your organization’s most-used data sources for Assistant to search.

If you previously selected specific data sources and want to switch back to using all sources, select All sources. Sigma Assistant immediately searches all available data sources. Your previously selected sources are retained but no longer determine what Assistant searches, and the Selected sources section is hidden while All sources is selected.

  1. Go to Administration > AI settings:

    1. In the Sigma header, click your user avatar to open the user menu.
    2. Select Administration to open the Administration portal.
    3. In the side panel, select AI settings.

  2. Select the Assistant tab.

  3. In the Assistant data sources section, select All sources.

For more details about how Assistant chooses sources from within all sources, see How Sigma Assistant selects data sources when answering user questions.

Select data sources for Sigma Assistant

You can limit Sigma Assistant to use only sources that you specify. Users can choose specific data sources that they have access to when asking natural language queries, but if no source is specified by the user, Assistant only uses the configured sources.

Select data models to take advantage of semantic modeling, relationships, and metrics. You can also select Snowflake semantic views, tables from connected data platforms, or datasets (deprecated).

To select specific data sources for Assistant:

  1. Go to Administration > AI settings:

    1. In the Sigma header, click your user avatar to open the user menu.
    2. Select Administration to open the Administration portal.
    3. In the side panel, select AI settings.

  2. Select the Assistant tab.

  3. In the Assistant data sources section, select Specific sources.

  4. Select Add source.

  5. In the Add sources modal, search for and select one or more data models, tables, Snowflake semantic views, or datasets.

    When you select a data model as a source, only the published version of the data model is selected. You cannot select the tagged version of a data model.

  6. Click Add to configure the selected sources for Assistant. The selected data sources are automatically synced and added to the semantic search index used by Assistant to select data sources.

If you change data sources or metadata in your data platform after you select those data sources, updates are available to Assistant within 2 hours. If you want the updates to be available immediately, return to this page and select Sync all data sources now to update the representation of your data sources in the semantic search index.

Review data access for AI features

AI features such as Sigma Assistant respect the access granted to users for data sources. Each user can see and query only the data sources that they have access to. If you want to restrict what Assistant uses as a data source for answers for a specific user or team, restrict user or team access to the data source at the data source, schema, or table level.

To manage user access to data, review the access set on a specific connection or data model:

How Sigma Assistant selects data sources when answering user questions

If a user asks a question of Sigma Assistant and a source is not specified, Assistant selects a source based on the following factors:

  • Whether sources are configured: If Assistant is accessed from Sigma Home and Assistant is limited to only selected sources, Assistant only chooses sources from the list of configured sources.
  • The user’s access to the data source: Assistant respects the access granted to the user asking the question and does not expose data they are not authorized to use.
  • The relevance of the data to the question: Assistant uses any metadata that exists to describe data sources and data columns, such as data model descriptions or column descriptions. If no other metadata has been defined, Assistant can infer relevancy from column names.
  • The known validity of the data: For example, if a data model has an “endorsed” badge applied, Assistant is more likely to use that data source. Similarly, if someone in your organization has created and shared metrics and data models, Assistant is more likely to select one of those when answering rather than using a table directly from your connected data platform.
  • The frequency of usage of the data source: Assistant is more likely to reference frequently used data sources in its answers.

Adding metadata to your data sources for Assistant is not required, but it is recommended. See Data modeling best practices.

Assistant uses any available metadata, such as certification badges, source descriptions, table descriptions, and column descriptions, to determine relevancy to a user’s question, but can also determine relevancy using column names alone.

To add metadata to data sources, see the following: