With the advent of large language models , generative AI became ubiquitous seemingly overnight. While it certainly has its limitations, this tool has incredibly widespread applications—so much so that industries aren’t asking, “Can we use generative AI?” but rather, “How can we use generative AI?”

At Tango, we’ve been using artificial intelligence and machine learning since 2017. It’s been the backbone of our best-in-class market planning and site selection software, Tango Predictive Analytics, and enables key capabilities of Tango Space. For years, AI has empowered our tools to make more accurate predictions, process vast amounts of data, and provide more relevant information.

But with more recent leaps in the capabilities and accessibility of generative AI, we’ve leveraged our years of experience to build Ask Tango, a unique AI-enabled feature that makes our tools even easier to use. Over the years, people have grown used to interacting with AI to navigate unfamiliar interfaces or remove steps from processes like hunting for information or scheduling reminders. A chatbot might save you a few clicks through dropdown menus on a website. Siri may pull up directions to your destination.

The better AI gets at understanding humans, the easier it is for us to use AI-enabled technology. One of the inherent challenges with software is simply learning how to get it to do what you want. The best vendors will always have the strongest alignment between quality developers and experienced industry professionals, which results in more intuitive tools—but even then, there’s a learning curve. Completing basic processes often requires several steps to simply tell software what we want from it—and there may also be several different ways to do so. Power users may memorize keyboard shortcuts for the same task that others navigate multiple menus to accomplish.

For example, if you want to analyze demographic data for a specific city, you search for the city you have in mind, then select the characteristics you want to isolate using a dropdown menu.

But what if, instead, you could interact with software more like you interact with people? What if you could just tell it to show you something, or ask a question? No navigating dropdown menus, applying filters, or clicking through dashboards (unless you want to). That’s the vision behind Ask Tango. Using generative AI and natural language processing, Tango can interpret conversational communication as prompts to retrieve the information you need. You want to know something Tango knows? Just ask! Giving people the freedom to simply say what they want from software reduces the gap between power users and infrequent or new users, improves productivity, eases the learning curve, and creates opportunities for deeper and more novel interactions with the solution.

This major breakthrough in ease of use is a common thread across our most popular IWMS and store lifecycle management solutions, including Tango Predictive Analytics, and Tango Lease, Tango Space.

Here are some of the use cases for Ask Tango, whether you’re in Tango all the time, or you just need to answer a question or explore an idea.

Tango Predictive Analytics

When you use Ask Tango in Predictive Analytics, you can ask questions about demographics and competitors, including things like:

• What’s the population in 5 miles?
• What’s the median household income within 3 miles?
• How many Starbucks within 2 miles?

Your questions can be high-level starting points for further research, or you can get more specific. And rather than having to learn specific inputs or remember how to apply the filters you want, you can type your questions in a variety of natural, intuitive ways. And as always, the answers are fueled by a combination of datasets from our trusted partners, your internal data, and any work you’ve already done in Tango.

Tango Lease

In our lease administration and accounting software, Ask Tango provides a straightforward path to explore data from your portfolio, such as:

• How many leases will expire in the next 3 months, 6 months and year? How many in the next five years?
• How many renewal options must be actioned on in the next 6 months?
• How many termination or purchase options are coming up in the next year?
• How much have we spent on base rent in 2023?
• What were our operating expenses in Q1?
• How many leases have a potential percentage rent obligation and what was paid in 2023?

While Tango Lease has always made your lease documents searchable, Ask Tango gives you another way to find the precise information you’re looking for. Instead of skimming every mention of a term, you can pull up the exact instance you need, whether you’ve entered the term with the same phrasing or you’ve just described the concept.

Tango Space

Tango Space is your single source of truth for all your space management data, including real-time information from Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and office reservation systems like Tango Reserve. While our intuitive dashboards and clear interface offer simple ways to investigate spatial questions, Ask Tango can help you cut to the chase even faster when your administrators or space planning committee members want to know things like:

• What 8+ person meeting rooms are available on Tuesday at 1:00pm?
• How many workstations have less than 50% occupancy rate?
• Show me my 10 most frequently occupied rooms.
• Which amenity has the highest vacancy rate?
• Are there any private offices with more than 300 square feet?

As you consider better ways to manage the space you have and optimize your real estate portfolio, Ask Tango gives you a new starting point to discover opportunities.

Find what you need faster with Ask Tango

Ask Tango builds on advances in natural language processing and artificial intelligence to make Tango’s robust capabilities even more accessible. While our tools are highly configurable to ensure our dashboards meet your organization’s needs, with Ask Tango, you’re only ever one step away from the information and insights you need.

The next time you use one of our tools, just Ask Tango!

Want to see what else Tango can do for you?

Request a demo today.