Deltek has announced Dela, an AI-powered intelligent business companion. Deltek Dela is available across several applications within the Deltek portfolio. Dela combines artificial intelligence, machine learning and generative AI. Combined with natural language processing to assist users with their project management tasks.
Features include the ability to generate content, forecasting and data analysis for deeper insights. Warren Linscott wrote in a supporting blog, “Dela is more than a digital assistant – rather an intelligent business companion that works behind the scenes within our project-based solutions, empowering Deltek Project Nation to work smarter and more efficiently across the project lifecycle.”
Dela is a fully-fledged companion that builds on the AI-powered Smart Summaries that Deltek announced at ProjectCon last year. Deltek Dela consists of three broad categories of features and benefits.
Bret Tushaus, Vice President of Product Strategy at Deltek comments, “At Deltek, we’re committed to making the project lifecycle smarter and know that project-based businesses need a trusted partner that is not only innovative for the sake of innovation but supports them to transform their business. We created Dela to meet this business need, providing project-based businesses with the technology needed to launch new services, increase staff engagement and ultimately, boost profits. Today, we’re thrilled to launch Dela, an integral part of Deltek’s industry-leading suite of solutions, providing intelligent prediction and automation capabilities – it’s like having a crystal ball for project management.”
Generate and Automate Smart content
Smart content is not just about the generation of textual content. It can also be used to autofill timesheets with data stored elsewhere for the user to approve. It can generate smart summaries about projects or a portfolio of projects with different levels of detail.
Predict project and organisational success
Dela can analyse historical data sets to identify trends in metrics such as performance and resource utilisation. It can then forecast how projects are performing and their chances of success or anticipate future needs of a project, such as resources.
Enable intelligent exploration
Dela can access a broad range of data to find information based on natural language requests from users. An example question that users can pose to the assistant is how many open projects are there for a specific customer. The assistant can then list them on request and then, using the generate content feature, provide a summary of the projects for the user to read and share. To achieve this Dela can access customer information held in the Deltek solution instance as well as publicly available data.
Availability and pricing
Deltek Dela is currently available in the following Deltek applications:
- Costpoint
- Vantagepoint
- GovWin IQ
- PM Compass
- Maconomy
- Replicon
- Talent Management
Deltek Dela is also available on the Costpoint mobile application, and plans are underway to roll it out to other mobile applications. However, no timescale was given for this.
Each application has specific features developed using AI, and this latest announcement adds several. For Costpoint, users can ask questions in natural language about contracts or projects, receive answers, and initiate emails or phone calls regarding overdue tasks. In the upcoming months, Deltek will also introduce the Deltek Costpoint Digital Assistant.
Within GovWin IQ, smart summaries are expanding to new data sets, including Task Orders, Government Contacts and Opportunities. Dela will become a native component of Deltek Solutions, meaning that no separate installation is required. The customer will have to be on the latest release of each product though.
Is there a cost associated with Deltek Dela? Michelle Cipollone, Vice President of Product Marketing and Bret Tushaus, Vice President of Product Strategy, answered that question by saying.
“Many of Deltek Dela’s capabilities will be embedded in existing Deltek products and will be part of the license fee for those products. In other cases, like Replicon Zero Time, we will charge for this AI-enhanced capability. Currently, Dela’s GovWin IQ Smart Summaries, Smart Search, and Ask IQ features come with the purchase of GovWin IQ Federal or State & Local Information solutions.
“The Dela digital assistant for Costpoint and Vantagepoint will come with a license for the core product. Wherever possible we want Dela to enhance existing products and services. In the future, there may be circumstances where a Dela capability is for sale on its own.”
Governance
Not surprisingly, Deltek has also embedded security and data privacy within the new features. Deltek recognises that trust in AI is important. Deltek currently works with Microsoft Azure AI, and customer data is not used to train the LLMs. Customers also have the choice of whether to opt into Dela’s features.
Trust and security have remained vital throughout Dela’s development. With Deltek continuously working with its generative AI partners to ensure customer data is not used to train large language models (LLMs). Customers have the option of whether to opt into using Dela’s features.
I asked Cipollone whether data sovereignty is maintained for customers opting into Dela. She replied, “Opting in to Dela means organizations can opt in or out to turning on Dela features in their solution at an organizational level. Our GenAI solutions do not impact our data sovereignty position, meaning the data collected or stored in a specific location will remain in that location.”
On the wider guardrails around its AI solution, Cipollone added, “Our commitment to security and trust is unwavering as we incorporate AI technology into our industry-specific solutions. We’re proactive in our approach — collaborating with industry experts and aligning with technology groups to pre-emptively tackle security challenges.”
Deltek ensures security and data privacy to engender trust in these new AI capabilities.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
This is a significant announcement for Deltek and demonstrates an investment in AI that goes across its suite of applications. It comes at a time when several ERP vendors, such as Infor, are maturing their AI integrations. Where this announcement stands out is the breadth of capabilities that Deltek has and will introduce.
While not every application has every feature enabled, it is clear that Deltek has a strong roadmap for rolling these out. Customers will need to check which are available and consider how they implement them. We are now in the age of artificial intelligence. However, organisations must consider the change management that is needed to introduce automation and generative AI solutions. And ensure that people leverage them in the best way.
