# ChatBI: Towards Natural Language to Complex Business Intelligence SQL

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.00527 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.00527/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 1 May 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

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- [DataLab: A Unified Platform for LLM-Powered Business Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02205/) (2024)
- [Evaluating and Enhancing LLMs for Multi-turn Text-to-SQL with Multiple Question Types](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.17867/) (2024)
- [WorkTeam: Constructing Workflows from Natural Language with Multi-Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.22473/) (2025)
- [Datrics Text2SQL: A Framework for Natural Language to SQL Query Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12234/) (2025)
- [Bridging Global Intent with Local Details: A Hierarchical Representation Approach for Semantic Validation in Text-to-SQL](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.22744/) (2025)
- [RedParrot: Accelerating NL-to-DSL for Business Analytics via Query Semantic Caching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22758/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The Natural Language to SQL (NL2SQL) technology provides non-expert users who are unfamiliar with databases the opportunity to use SQL for data analysis.Converting Natural Language to Business Intelligence (NL2BI) is a popular practical scenario for NL2SQL in actual production systems. Compared to NL2SQL, NL2BI introduces more challenges. In this paper, we propose ChatBI, a comprehensive and efficient technology for solving the NL2BI task. First, we analyze the interaction mode, an important module where NL2SQL and NL2BI differ in use, and design a smaller and cheaper model to match this interaction mode. In BI scenarios, tables contain a huge number of columns, making it impossible for existing NL2SQL methods that rely on Large Language Models (LLMs) for schema linking to proceed due to token limitations. The higher proportion of ambiguous columns in BI scenarios also makes schema linking difficult. ChatBI combines existing view technology in the database community to first decompose the schema linking problem into a Single View Selection problem and then uses a smaller and cheaper machine learning model to select the single view with a significantly reduced number of columns. The columns of this single view are then passed as the required columns for schema linking into the LLM. Finally, ChatBI proposes a phased process flow different from existing process flows, which allows ChatBI to generate SQL containing complex semantics and comparison relations more accurately. We have deployed ChatBI on Baidu's data platform and integrated it into multiple product lines for large-scale production task evaluation. The obtained results highlight its superiority in practicality, versatility, and efficiency. At the same time, compared with the current mainstream NL2SQL technology under our real BI scenario data tables and queries, it also achieved the best results.