Andy MacMillan on AI adoption & data strategy at Alteryx – News

Artificial intelligence’s impact on business is undeniable, but companies struggle to realize its promise. The challenge isn’t just keeping up with AI adoption; it’s ensuring that data-driven insights fuel meaningful decisions.

For Alteryx Inc., an analytics automation platform company, this means redefining how organizations work with data. At the helm of this transformation is Andy MacMillan, who stepped in as chief executive officer in December 2024, bringing decades of experience in enterprise data, analytics and tech leadership. MacMillan entered a pivotal moment. Alteryx had just become a private company through a $4.4 billion buyout by Clearlake Capital and Insight Partners. His mandate: Accelerate innovation, unify Alteryx’s product portfolio and reposition the company as a governance-driven AI data platform.

“I started in early December, so very new in the role … but it’s been a fast ramp-up,” MacMillan said. “I’ve known the company for a while [and] know the space. I used to run the data.com business at Salesforce a while ago, so [I’m] definitely not new to the data game.”

During an interview earlier this year at the “AI & Analytics: Shaping the Future With Alteryx CEO & Tom Davenport” event, MacMillan spoke with theCUBE Research’s John Furrier. Their discussion spanned AI’s impact on enterprise data strategy, the role of business analysts and Alteryx’s evolving approach to AI-driven insights.

This feature is part of News Media’s ongoing series exploring the latest developments in the data and AI market. (* Disclosure below.) 

Bridging the data divide: Why AI needs a unified approach

MacMillan’s experience navigating data challenges firsthand gives him a unique perspective on the shifts happening as AI evolves and companies rethink how they structure and manage their data. Historically, companies relied on department-specific systems that created inefficiencies. Now, organizations are shifting toward integrated data ecosystems that enable real-time insights across teams, according to MacMillan.

“I think … how people put their data together used to be … kind of line-of-business centric and was very siloed by the business applications you pick,” he said. “The big shift is the promise of AI to be more effective and efficient across those layers [and] across those teams.”

In 2025, Alteryx began positioning itself not only as an analytics company, but as what it calls an “AI Data Clearinghouse” — a unified governance layer for preparing, cleaning and auditing data before feeding it to AI models. The company’s goal is to ensure that AI outputs are as trustworthy as the data that powers them.

Alteryx helps enterprises adapt by making AI-driven insights more accessible beyond technical teams, according to MacMillan. Business users increasingly need a flexible “canvas” where they can pull data together without deep technical expertise, ensuring AI can be applied effectively to solve real-world problems.

“When I got the opportunity to come to Alteryx, it was like … this is the exact problem I had before,” MacMillan said. “I’ve seen this problem. I’ve had this need.”

The analyst’s advantage: How AI adoption is shifting business intelligence

As AI adoption moves beyond individual users, leadership teams are rethinking how it integrates across entire organizations, forcing them to evaluate AI’s impact on workflows, decision-making and scalability. While AI adoption has traditionally focused on data scientists, companies now rely on analysts who understand both business needs and data mechanics, according to MacMillan.

“The way people apply analytics is shifting,” he said. “Rather than waiting on technical teams to process and interpret data, business analysts can now take direct action.”

This evolution has accelerated with Alteryx’s Spring 2025 release, which launched Alteryx One and expanded its AI-powered, low-code/no-code capabilities — including Copilot, which enables natural-language prompts for building workflows, and GenAI tools that help integrate generative AI into data transformation and prep tasks. The platform now supports what Alteryx calls “AI assistance” across its unified environment.

The rise of low-code and no-code solutions is accelerating this transition, allowing analysts to develop workflows and automate repetitive processes without deep technical expertise. By equipping analysts with the right tools, enterprises can maximize AI’s potential for decision-making and strategic planning, according to MacMillan.

“Alteryx really helps business analysts become super users of data,” he said. “They need a workspace … where they can pull together data from multiple sources, analyze it and make informed decisions. That’s what we help our customers do.”

The company’s “The 2025 State of the Data Analysts in the Age of AI” report found that 97% of analysts use AI tools to speed up work, but 76% still rely on manual spreadsheets for data prep — a gap Alteryx aims to close through automation and governance.

Alteryx’s global community plays a key role in this evolution, according to MacMillan. With more than 600,000 users, including ACE-certified experts, the company has built a network of professionals advancing AI-driven analytics. This engaged community is adopting AI and shaping best practices for data preparation and governance to help businesses maximize AI’s potential.

“What I think is exciting for them is the future of AI means that their skill set is going to be even more valuable as companies try to get their data prepared for,” MacMillan said. “A lot of what we’re doing is partnering not only with our customers, but even our users to help them get ready for this and really feel like this is a tailwind for their career.”

Redefining data strategy: MacMillan’s playbook for Alteryx

As AI reshapes enterprise strategy, leaders must rethink operations from the ground up. Alteryx is challenging every function of the company to evaluate how AI can enhance workflows, decision-making and scalability, according to MacMillan.

“This is one of those moments where every leader should rethink essentially everything they’re doing,” MacMillan said. “There is no function where I have not had a chance to sit down and open up a ChatGPT or a Gemini and think about how would this change the way that your team runs, how it solves problems [and] how it scales.”

Under MacMillan, Alteryx consolidated its portfolio under a new brand umbrella, the above-mentioned Alteryx One. The platform unites analytics, automation and AI governance through a single licensing model and centralized management portal. The move simplifies adoption across cloud and on-premises deployments while maintaining enterprise-grade data controls.

A critical factor in AI adoption is data accessibility. While many companies are racing to deploy AI models, the differentiator lies in how well enterprises control and leverage their own data. Organizations relying solely on third-party applications risk limiting their ability to refine AI models with proprietary insights, according to MacMillan.

“For the use cases that I was familiar with, paying to use all those APITs when I didn’t want any of that business logic,” he said. “I just wanted the data [because] it made sense to go right to the data.”

This shift is notably more complex in enterprise environments, where AI must integrate with governance structures. Unlike consumer AI, which freely processes open data, enterprise AI must enforce strict permissioning to protect sensitive information.

“It sounds really good until somebody says, ‘Let’s ask the GPT what people think of this leader in the organization,’ and everybody’s private chats are part of that knowledge base,” MacMillan said. “That’s not what we do. That’s not the expectation of that system.”

The business of AI: Where Alteryx fits in the enterprise shift

AI adoption is evolving beyond automation to become a core driver of business operations. The challenge isn’t just implementing AI, but ensuring it integrates smoothly with existing workflows and delivers trusted insights.

“[Companies] don’t want the complexity, right?” MacMillan said. “I think AI is, in some ways — if we do it right — the great simplifier.”

One of the biggest hurdles in AI adoption is trust. Without reliable governance, AI-generated insights can introduce more risk than value. Alteryx helps enterprises maintain control over their data sources, ensuring AI-driven decisions are built on trusted, structured information, according to MacMillan.

“When I built my first GPT, it was a tool to help me prepare for reaching out to a customer,” he said. “I took a bunch of use cases and examples of value we provided customers, and I loaded it in. But I didn’t train it correctly, and it just started making stuff up. When I dug in, I realized why. But importantly, I was then able to go in and retrain the system … to only use this set of data. That’s an analyst’s job, making sure AI pulls from the right sources and delivers something reliable.”

At its Inspire 2025 conference, Alteryx showcased new generative AI capabilities that blend support for public large language models such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Gemini with options for private, on-prem models. The company also announced the appointment of Arvind Krishnan as chief technology officer and Michelle Huff as chief marketing officer, expanding leadership to drive its unified AI and analytics vision.

Beyond trust, enterprises are looking for measurable business impact. One manufacturing company MacMillan met with uses AI for design optimization, leveraging past project data to create pattern-matching models that dramatically reduce production time.

“Every business is thinking about how to completely change,” MacMillan said. “That would change everything from their margin structure, their delivery timelines, their staffing levels and what they’re hiring for. It’s just a fascinating, transformational concept.”

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE was a paid media partner for the “AI & Analytics: Shaping the Future With Alteryx CEO & Tom Davenport” event. Neither Alteryx Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or News.)

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