Kapa.ai + Apache Superset: Transforming Community Support Through AI
In the world of open-source software (business intelligence or otherwise), providing timely, accurate support to a growing community can be challenging. The Apache Superset project is the leading open-source business intelligence (BI) platform, and is one of the largest projects of the Apache Software Foundation (with over 65,000 GitHub stars and over 19,000 Slack users). Superset has found a powerful solution to enable its community through partnering with Kapa.ai, an AI-powered assistant that's revolutionizing how we engage with our users and contributors.
The Challenge of Scale
Apache Superset has seen significant growth over recent years, and this growth brings tremendous opportunities but also challenges in ensuring that every community member can find the answers they need when they need them. The volunteers running our community on GitHub, Slack, and other fora are vastly outnumbered by people asking questions.
Before implementing AI solutions, our team of maintainers and contributors worked tirelessly to answer questions and unblock users/admins. As the project grows, this volume increases, and it becomes increasingly difficult to provide the responsive support our community deserves.
Enter Kapa.ai
Our journey with Kapa.ai began in our Slack workspace, where we introduced the AI assistant in our dedicated #ask-ai channel. The results were immediate and impressive. Community members could get instant responses to their questions, reducing wait times and freeing up our human experts to focus on more complex issues.
Encouraged by this success, we recently expanded the integration to the official Superset website. While this was only recently enabled, the impact has been even more significant than we anticipated.
Immediate Results
Since implementing kapa’s Ask AI on our website, we've seen:
- A significant boost in user engagement
- Improved ability for users to locate and utilize relevant documentation
- More efficient onboarding for new users and contributors
- Over 4,500 monthly questions answered by the AI assistant (and counting!)
The most common topics addressed by kapa include installation procedures and contribution guidelines, directly supporting two of our most important community growth vectors: product adoption and contributor acquisition.
We even got feedback from a community member that was unblocked within minutes of adding the integration:
Privacy and Compliance
A key consideration for any Apache Software Foundation project is data privacy and compliance. Kapa.ai worked directly with the ASF to establish a Data Processing Agreement (DPA), ensuring that all data remains private and anonymous unless a user explicitly opts in for the service.
This commitment to privacy and compliance means that Superset can leverage cutting-edge AI technology while maintaining the high standards expected of an ASF top-level project.
Real Impact on Open Source BI
The integration of Kapa.ai into our support infrastructure has had tangible benefits for our mission to democratize business intelligence:
- Accelerating Product Adoption: New users can overcome installation hurdles more quickly, leading to higher conversion rates from curious visitors to active users.
- Empowering Administrators: System administrators can find configuration answers faster, enabling smoother deployments and management of Superset instances.
- Fostering Contributions: Potential contributors can navigate our guidelines more efficiently, reducing barriers to entry for those who want to give back to the project.
- Around-the-Clock Support: Our global community now has access to high-quality support at any time, regardless of time zone differences.
Looking Forward
The partnership between Apache Superset and Kapa.ai represents more than just an improvement in our support infrastructure—it's a step forward in how open-source projects can leverage AI to enhance community experiences.
As we continue to refine this integration, we anticipate further improvements in the accuracy and depth of responses, potentially expanding the AI's capabilities to assist with more complex technical issues and contribute to our documentation efforts. Confidence is already looking quite good, but we anticipate that by contributing to our knowledge base with frequently asked questions discovered by Kapa, we can boost this even higher.
As next steps, Superset and Kapa.ai are considering the option of adding Kapa to Superset itself, as an in-product assistant. We also plan to launch a new Superset Community Dashboard within Superset itself (including the chart above), so anyone can see this growing engagement on a daily basis.
Conclusion
Through our partnership with Kapa.ai, Apache Superset is demonstrating how AI can be harnessed to strengthen open-source communities while respecting privacy and compliance requirements. By providing instant, accurate responses to common questions, we're removing barriers to entry, accelerating adoption, and helping open-source business intelligence reach its full potential.
The result? A more engaged community, happier users, and a stronger foundation for the future growth of Apache Superset. As we continue on our mission to democratize data visualization and business intelligence, tools like Kapa.ai will play an increasingly important role in ensuring that everyone can participate in and benefit from our project.
