Chat in Genie

Chat provides a unified, full-screen interface for asking data questions in natural language. Chat uses existing dashboards, queries, Genie Spaces, and metric views to answer your questions with all available data.

Enable chat

Workspace admins can enable chat for all workspace users:

1. As a workspace admin, click your username in the top bar of the Azure Databricks workspace.
2. From the menu, select Previews.
3. Search for and turn on New chat experience in Genie.

Users must have the CAN USE permission on a SQL warehouse to use chat.

How chat works

When you submit a question to chat:

1. It searches available Genie Spaces for one relevant to your question.
2. If a matching Genie Space is found, it uses that space to generate a response.
3. If no matching Genie Space is found, it uses Genie in Agent mode to search for relevant data assets and answer your question.

You can also connect external data sources such as Google Drive or SharePoint to give chat access to your company documents. See Add a data source to a conversation.

To open chat, click chat from the Genie home page, or use Ask mode in the search bar.

Scheduled tasks

Scheduled tasks run automatically at a specified time and post the results in a chat thread. When a task runs, chat sends you an email with the results.

You can create a scheduled task in two ways:

• Type a request in natural language in chat, for example: "Send me a daily briefing of all new customer reviews for my store location." Chat might ask clarifying questions, such as the time or which location to use, then creates the task and adds it to the Scheduled tasks section.

• Click Scheduled tasks in the left sidebar, then click New task. Fill in the Title, Instructions, Schedule, and Timezone, then click Create.

  

To view past runs, edit, or delete a scheduled task, click the task in the Scheduled tasks section. Each run opens in a chat thread.

Chat limitations

• You cannot specify which SQL warehouse chat uses. Databricks selects one automatically.
• Only one conversation can be active at a time.
• Workspaces with many Genie Spaces might experience reduced routing accuracy.

Add a data source to a conversation

You can connect external data sources such as Google Drive or SharePoint to a chat conversation. This allows chat to search your company documents when answering questions. Each user authenticates individually. OAuth tokens are not shared between users.

Connecting external data sources requires the Third Party Connectors for Agents Beta to be enabled in your workspace. See Manage Azure Databricks previews.

1. On the Genie home page, click chat.

2. Click the plus icon at the bottom left of the search bar.

3. Select a data source.

   To connect additional data sources, click More connections at the bottom of the list. You can create a custom MCP connection in Unity Catalog. See Use external MCP servers.

4. Click Sign in and complete the steps to sign in.

The connection is added to your conversation. Chat can now search your documents when answering questions. After a connection is created, metastore admins and connection owners can manage or revoke user permissions on it. See Share the MCP server connection.

Google Drive limitations

• When authorizing Google Drive, you might see an "unverified app" screen. Click Advanced and continue the authorization process.
• Maximum file size is 10MB.
• Only built-in Google Docs files are supported. PDFs, images, and other binary formats are not supported.
• Connection or token expiration errors might appear in the agent output. Re-authenticate to the connection to resolve.

SharePoint limitations

• Maximum file size is 10MB.
• Supported file types include built-in SharePoint documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, as well as common text-based formats such as .txt, .csv, .json, .md, and others. PDFs, images, and other binary formats are not supported.

Next steps

• Genie UI
• What is a Genie Space
• Create a connection