Customer & Partner Spotlights

Jul 18, 2025

How Qlik Is Powering Bystronic’s GenAI Transformation

Image of Qlik blog author Stefan Heinz

Stefan Heinz

5 minutes

How Qlik Is Powering Bystronic’s GenAI Transformation

Some data problems are universal — like dealing with unstructured data. At Bystronic, a global leader in sheet metal processing, we have mountains of it. From technical documentation to sales decks, HR policies, and IT knowledge bases, data is scattered across folders, servers, and systems. 

Industry research shows that 80% of enterprise data is unstructured, meaning it’s often invisible to the teams that need it most. As a result, up to 68% of that data goes unused. The impact is real: employees spend as much as 20% of their workdays just trying to track down the information they need, wasting valuable time and slowing the pace of business. 

For a long time, this was the story at Bystronic.   

Familiar Roadblocks in a Fast-Moving Industry 

Our purpose is to deliver cutting-edge laser cutting, bending, automation, and software solutions that allow manufacturers to innovate and operate with precision and speed. But even the most state-of-the-art organizations can struggle when their internal operations don’t mirror their goals and mission. 

Operationally, our multitudes of data left us working within a complex and opaque maze, and the lack of accessibility chipped away at the trust in our data. Procedurally, we faced manual work, slow processes, reactive problem-solving, and customer service bottlenecks — a combination that hampered our ability to analyze and query data, delayed customer response times, and ultimately risked eroding customer satisfaction. 

To address this, we turned inward to find the solution. 

Putting AI into Play with Qlik Answers 

I’m the senior BI and analytics specialist at Bystronic, and I’m also a Qlik Luminary. We’ve used Qlik since 2016, and in 2024, we had the chance to explore something new: Qlik Answers

As a Qlik Luminary, I got access to Qlik Answers soon after it was made publicly available. I tried the solution and was impressed by the speed at which we could get personalized, AI-driven answers from the numerous sources of unstructured data we already had all over the company. I demonstrated Qlik Answers to my boss, who agreed it was a no-brainer. While the underlying technology was sophisticated, the solution itself was very much plug-and-play, making implementation easy. 

Setting up Qlik Answers was remarkably fast. Implementing each new knowledge base or chatbot takes about 15 minutes plus indexing time. I just start it up — and it runs. 

From First Look to Daily Use 

Qlik Answers delivers results fast, but its real power lies in the way it extracts those answers. It draws on three critical components that work together to provide accurate, relevant, and actionable insights: 

  1. The large language model (LLM): The AI engine is trained on vast datasets to understand natural language and generate sophisticated responses. It would cost hundreds of millions to build independently. Qlik Answers offers that resource straight out of the box.  

  2. Advanced semantic search: This search goes beyond keywords to grasp the intended meaning behind imprecise user queries, returning the information people really want.  

  3. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) strategies: This technique optimizes the LLM’s outputs by anchoring them in our own up-to-date internal knowledge base.  

Together, these elements give our teams a level of AI-driven capability that was previously out of reach, and they’re transforming the way we interact with our data every day. 

While we’re still in the early stages of our journey, we’ve already seen meaningful wins. One of the first big successes came when we connected Qlik Answers to our sales team’s document repository. Almost immediately, a salesperson used the chatbot to pull up a key PDF from the sales DMS folder — and was thrilled by how fast and easy it was to retrieve. 

“We believe everyone should have access to the tools and data they need, and Qlik Answers plays a big role in making that possible.” 

I once received an email from the team that read: “This is the best tool ever.” Clearly, we were onto something powerful, and it confirmed just how valuable our teams found the ability to access and use the information already within reach. 

Today, about 200 people at Bystronic use Qlik Answers, and others are eager to try it themselves. My team believes everyone should have access to the tools and data they need, and Qlik Answers plays a big role in making that possible. 

Imagining what comes next 

Looking ahead, we see massive potential for Qlik Answers to reshape how we work across the business. As we continue to roll it out in new departments, we expect we will: 

  • Reduce ticket volume by 50% with the Online Customer Service Assistant 

  • Cut onboarding time by 40% with the HR and Onboarding Assistant 

  • Drop repetitive IT support tickets by 30% with the IT Helpdesk Knowledge Base 

  • Reduce technician call-backs by 15% with the Service Technician Assistant 

  • Improve access velocity by 50% through faster Contract Analysis 

“The old way of forcing unstructured data into structured formats is no longer enough. Today’s AI tools can unlock the full value of that unstructured data, making it searchable, actionable, and useful — often in just a few clicks.” 

The old way of forcing unstructured data into structured formats is no longer enough. Today’s AI tools can unlock the full value of unstructured data, making it searchable, actionable, and useful — often in just a few clicks. 

With Qlik Answers, we’ve opened the door to a new way of working. For Bystronic, there’s no looking back. 

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