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CUSTOMER STORY

Transforming retail strategies with advanced consumer insights

Grupo Casas Bahia cuts analysis time and empowers self-service with AI/BI Genie

Minutes

To analyze data — down from 5–6 hours

Forward-looking

Instead of historical decision-making

PLATFORM USE CASE: Databricks SQL

Grupo Casas Bahia serves millions of customers with a diverse range of household goods, creating immense data challenges across logistics, sales and fraud prevention. Before adopting Databricks’ AI/BI Genie, the retailer faced significant obstacles: Analysts were constrained by the need for SQL expertise, inconsistent business logic hampered insights and data requests overwhelmed the technical team, limiting scalability. With Genie, Grupo Casas Bahia unlocked innovations like natural language querying, predictive modeling for inventory and sales and real-time fraud detection. Teams now make data-driven decisions with ease, reducing analysis time from hours to just minutes and democratizing data access across all levels of the organization.

Reliance on technical skills stifles scalability and decision-making

Grupo Casas Bahia is a leading retail company in Brazil, renowned for their extensive range of household goods and commitment to serving millions of customers nationwide. Their mission is to deliver exceptional customer experiences by leveraging technology to drive innovation, efficiency and operational excellence.
 
The retailer sought improvements across three key areas — logistics and supply chain management, sales analysis and fraud detection. They wanted to refine their demand forecasting by monitoring inventory levels to better predict potential stockouts. Meanwhile, sales teams needed to analyze sales trends, inventory positions and competitor performance to provide actionable insights to guide marketing strategies. And the fraud prevention team required a more real-time approach to evaluating transactional patterns.
 
Existing Power BI workflows hindered progress in these areas. One significant obstacle was the high dependence on technical skills. Analysts needed SQL expertise to run queries, creating a barrier for many users and slowing productivity. “Even business analysts had to learn SQL,” Robson Soares, Business Analytics Coordinator at Grupo Casas Bahia, explained. “It took them significant time to construct queries, limiting how deeply they could analyze the data.”
 
Another challenge was inconsistent business logic. Different departments applied varied rules and categorizations, resulting in discrepancies and difficulty reconciling numbers. “Without a unified logic,” Robson added, “teams often struggled to align their insights across departments.” Finally, scalability was a concern. Data requests overwhelmed the technical team, reducing their ability to focus on strategic projects. Maro Lopes de Souza Neto, Business Analytics Specialist at Grupo Casas Bahia, attested to this, saying, “We were constantly answering questions or helping build queries.”
 
These challenges limited Grupo Casas Bahia’s ability to democratize data access and empower teams to make independent, informed decisions — ultimately leading them to adopt Databricks’ AI/BI Genie.

Democratizing data access with Databricks AI/BI Genie

By combining AI/BI Genie’s natural language processing capabilities with Databricks’ broader data intelligence ecosystem, the retailer gained a centralized, scalable solution to democratize data access and streamline workflows across teams.

Genie empowers teams to query data in natural language, eliminating the need for technical expertise. Users can ask questions in their native language, Portuguese, and Genie translates these into actionable insights, providing immediate answers aligned with business logic. For example, Robson can ask, “Quais são as 5 principais categorias que mais movimentaram produtos hoje?” which means, “Which top 5 categories have moved the most products today?” and Genie would return a data-driven response. “Genie has allowed us to normalize our data and ensure consistency across departments,” Robson explained. “This was critical for us to deliver accurate and reliable insights.”
 
Through AI functions, Genie works seamlessly with models created in Databricks’ AutoML to support demand forecasting. By analyzing inventory levels, Genie helps predict stockouts and ensure products remain available for customers. According to Robson, “We can now predict when products will reach zero stock levels, allowing us to proactively avoid disruptions. For example, we can retrieve predictions to questions like, ‘This week, how many products will be stocked out?’”
 
Now, sales teams can self-serve their own insights by leveraging Genie to perform cross-analysis. Databricks Platform’s ability to connect disparate data points provides actionable insights that guide marketing and sales strategies. “It helps us connect sales performance to broader factors like inventory availability and market competitiveness, enabling smarter decision-making,” Maro added.
 
Genie enables the fraud prevention team to evaluate transactional patterns and identify potential risks quickly. By asking targeted questions like “Which orders have a high chance of fraud today?” the team uses Genie’s insights to prioritize investigations effectively. Cezar Steinz, Data and AI Senior Manager, highlighted, “Genie gives us the ability to focus on high-risk orders by providing fraud scores and relevant signals.”
 
To further expand data accessibility, Grupo Casas Bahia integrated Genie with Microsoft Teams through Genie’s Conversation API. This allows users across the organization, including C-level executives, to interact with Genie directly within their primary productivity platform.

AI/BI Genie integrated within Microsoft Teams
AI/BI Genie integrated within Microsoft Teams


According to Cezar, “Having Genie integrated with Teams has been a huge step forward for data democratization. It makes data insights accessible to everyone, no matter their technical background.”

Genie boosts productivity by cutting analysis time to 2 minutes

Databricks’ AI/BI Genie has delivered transformative results for Grupo Casas Bahia, empowering teams to work more efficiently and make data-driven decisions with ease. By enabling self-service analytics and automating complex queries, Genie has significantly improved productivity and decision-making across the organization.
 
“Bringing data to a familiar platform where users already operate daily, including for addressing routine questions, has the potential to transform how we consume data within the company. This approach helps overcome the initial barrier of resistance to adopting new tools and integrates data seamlessly into employees’ everyday workflows, which is truly remarkable,” Bruno Santos, Analytics Manager at Grupo Casas Bahia, said.
 
One of the most tangible impacts has been the reduction in analysis time. Tasks that previously took 5–6 hours are now completed in just 2 minutes with Genie. “The director of logistics can now get the information they need almost instantly, with just one question,” Cezar shared. This newfound efficiency has freed up valuable time for teams, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives instead of routine data requests.
 
The Databricks Platform has reduced the reliance on the data team for query support. “Now, users can ask Genie the questions they used to ask us directly,” Maro said.
 
Genie has been instrumental in democratizing data across Grupo Casas Bahia. Employees across the organization now have access to advanced analytics, breaking down barriers that previously slowed productivity. “AI/BI Genie is the key to our data democratization strategy,” Cezar said. “It ensures that everyone, regardless of their background, can access the insights they need to perform at their best.”
 
Looking ahead, Grupo Casas Bahia plans to extend Genie’s capabilities by integrating it with Power BI dashboards. This innovation will enable users to deep-dive into data visualizations by asking questions directly within the dashboard interface. The retailer also plans to enhance Genie’s predictive capabilities by integrating it with more machine learning models. This will expand Genie’s ability to answer forward-looking questions. “When we demonstrate predictive insights with Genie, users immediately see its potential and want to explore more,” Robson concluded.