Changelog

🧵 Fall Launch: Threads & more​

Introducing Threads — a conversational interface for analytics, made for everyone who wants to answer questions with data. It’s integrated with your team’s existing data workflows, and has access to powerful tools anchored in trusted context.

Today is our biggest release ever, and by far the coolest stuff we’ve built — including new semantic modeling features, Notebook Agent improvements, better no-code viz in Explore, and more!

The highlight? Threads helps you unlock self-serve that actually works:

• ❓ Ask questions in natural language
• ⚓ Ground answers in context curated by the data team
• 💡 Get deeper insights from Hex’s advanced, built-in tools
• 🛡️ Keep the data team in control of auditing and curation

Threads is available to Explorers+ in public beta on Team and Enterprise plans. Extended AI usage limits are included for free during the early access period.

Ready to dive in? Check out our Threads quickstart guide.

Read our full announcement to learn more.

🤖 The Notebook Agent​

Introducing the Notebook Agent — bringing advanced agentic capabilities directly to where data teams are already working. Ask a question, get to a first draft in minutes, and iterate with precision.

The agent can help you do things like:

• 🗺️ Plan and refine where you want to take your analysis
• 🔍 Search your data to find the right table
• ⛓️ Create and chain cells using SQL and Python
• 📊 Visualize your data with native pivot and chart cells
• 💡 Summarize and synthesize your findings in Markdown cells

The Notebook Agent is available to Editors+ in public beta on all paid plans. Extended usage limits are included for free during the early access period.

Ready to dive in? Check out our Notebook Agent docs and best practices guide!

Read our full announcement to learn more.

Looking ahead at our roadmap in the coming months, we’re more excited than ever about the future of data — one where data teams are at the center, doing their best work, and enabling the rest of the organization with access to trusted answers.

This week’s updates lay the groundwork, starting with native Semantic Authoring in Hex!

✍️ Semantic Authoring Beta​

Last year, we launched Semantic Sync to enable self-serve via pre-existing semantic models. Today we’re taking the next step, bringing speed and trust together in one platform with native Semantic Authoring in Hex.

Now in public beta, the new Modeling Workbench gives Admins on Team and Enterprise plans the ability to curate the ground truth of your business — right where your team is already working.

These models become governed context that flows right into your workflows: consumed in Explore cells, and referenced by Ask Magic and Magic in Explore.

Read our full announcement to learn more about Hex’s first-class, AI-powered semantic authoring.

➕ Pivot totals and pivot cell glow-up​

Pivots got a makeover! Create a new pivot cell in your project to see the sleek redesign, and take advantage of powerful features like:

• Infinite scroll for a smoother viewing experience
• The option to transpose values as rows
• The ability to drill into aggregated values and view row-level data
• And (🥁 drumroll...) row and column totals!

A key part of exploring data is aggregation — questions like, “What’s the total revenue across this whole data table?” and “What’s the average lifetime value?”

With new pivot cells, totals are displayed by default. No need for more code or an extra cell to arrive at these insights.

Existing pivot cells will still run just fine, but will sport a "Legacy" tag in the notebook. Hover over "Legacy" to duplicate the cell into the new UX.

🧮 Cross-model calcs​

In the new Modeling Workbench, you can reference fields across any model or table when writing calcs. That means you can pull a dimension from one model into a calc in another (same goes for measures), as long as there's a join path between them.

Semantic Sync also supports cross-model calcs pulled in from dbt MetricFlow, Cube, or Snowflake Semantic Views.

📋 Audit logging for AI​

Curious about AI usage within your Hex workspace? Admins on the Enterprise plan can now see these new events captured in audit logs for security and compliance:

• Editing an exploration using AI
• Creating a new exploration using Ask Magic on the homepage
• Toggling on or off access to the Notebook Agent’s alpha features
• Using AI to edit a cell in the notebook
• Messaging the Notebook Agent
• And more (see full list of event types)

We’re all ears if there are other events you’d like to monitor.

Other improvements​

• Simultaneous total and subtotal labels in stacked charts: You can now display both the color/group label and the total label for stacked bar, column, and area charts — at the same time!
• New default for project sharing: We updated the default credential sharing setting to Off. That means project-level credential sharing is now opt-in, and Editors should check their preferred published app run settings when publishing new projects. No changes have been made to existing projects or your connection-level OAuth settings — those will continue to work as expected.
• Notification for downgraded access: Users missing workspace assets (e.g. data connections, secrets) will now see a banner and alert in the notebook flagging their downgraded project access. The updated UI makes it easy to understand what's missing, so they can loop in an Admin and get unblocked.
• Jump to corresponding cell in the Graph: If you have the Graph view open, clicking on a cell in the notebook will take you to that same cell in the DAG. Got 100 cells in the notebook? (Yikes. 🫠) At least now they’re easier to find in the Graph!
• Cleaner PDF exports: We tightened up the layout to eliminate extra white space, so exported PDFs look crisper and more polished for those executive eyes. 👀
• Bulk remove elements in rows: We fixed an issue where bulk removing elements didn’t always work. Now in the App Builder, you can remove multiple elements from the same grid row all at once. Fewer formatting clicks = more time for cool stuff.

This week’s release is all about helping your team scale confidently in Hex. We’ve added new features to make Hex more intuitive and accessible for everyone in your org, and quality-of-life improvements to make it easier to govern, find, and use trusted data across your workspace.

👥 REST and Observability APIs for Admins​

We recently announced new APIs for managing Hex workspaces at scale! Admins on Team and Enterprise plans can now use API endpoints to:

• Automate user role and group management
• Enforce consistent access policies across teams
• Plug Hex into your internal IT or data platform tooling

Plus, see which tables are queried across projects to better understand data access with a new Observability API now available on the Enterprise plan.

Read more about how you can get some time back by programmatically managing your workspace.

❓ Magic edits in Explore​

Now in beta, Magic in Explore helps you iterate faster by editing explorations based on natural language prompts.

Ask Magic will only generate explorations based on endorsed data, for higher confidence in every output. This means you (the mighty steward of data 👑) can optimize Magic’s results by curating the universe your stakeholders explore.

If you’re excited about powering AI with semantic context, we’re starting to roll out early access to native semantic authoring in Hex. Drop us a note at [email protected] to join the alpha waitlist.

🏠 Recommended tab in the data browser​

We rolled out a new recommended tab in the data browser that spotlights endorsed tables and models, making it easier to find trusted data — no guesswork required.

Admins can curate the data browser using endorsed statuses, so folks outside the data team can find their way with confidence.

The new experience folds in recently used and favorites to keep things streamlined. And now, you can filter tables and models by status or category to zero in on exactly what you need.

🔽 View underlying data in Explore​

Want to see the customer seats that make up ARR without creating a new cell or switching views? You can now select portions of your Explore charts and pivots to quickly see the underlying data.

You can also expand or collapse individual aggregate rows to get a deeper look at what makes up an aggregate. This makes it easier to inspect row-level data, all within the table in your exploration.

Other improvements​

• Titles in URLs: Hex URLs got a little nicer! URLs now contain the title of the project in the URL and have a compressed Hex ID to make links slightly shorter. Don’t worry, you can still grab your project’s ID in several ways.
• Richer audit logs: Admins can now monitor CSV exports and PDF downloads through detailed audit log entries, supporting data governance and compliance requirements.
• Chart sorting improvements: Full color and facet sorting in charts are here! You can sort categorical "color by" by y-axis for all chart types and sort facets by y-axis and custom.
• Security & Privacy contacts for your workspace: Admins can now set Security & Privacy contacts in workspace settings to keep the right folks in the loop. These contacts will be notified in the rare event of a security issue (heaven forbid) or if we make updates to our subprocessors.

This week, we’ve got new AI and governance features across the platform, plus highly-requested functionality that makes it easier to slice and present your data.

💬 AI chat 🤝 notebook​

We're releasing a new element in the notebook view — an agentic sidebar. Now, it's easier than ever to ask a quick syntax question, brainstorm how to get started on an analysis, or find the data you need.

Today, this is an integrated chat with context on your data and your project, but we have a lot more coming.

Next up: generating and editing cells, smarter integrated context, and continued SQL quality improvements.

If you'd like to try out the bleeding edge and help shape where this feature goes next, you can opt into our alpha version to get the latest updates.

📓 Faster, smarter AI edits in notebook cells​

We gave the editing experience a glow-up in SQL and Python cells — making it faster, cleaner, and more intuitive.

You can now review AI edits more easily by running a cell before accepting changes. If the output is close but not quite right, you can now tweak the suggested changes directly in the diff view.

We also seriously leveled up response quality, with smarter handling for different warehouse dialects, Jinja syntax, and big ol’ blocks of code.

🔮 Rules files: context for your AI prompts​

If you’re using Claude Projects or Cursor rules, you already know how passing some high-level context to your AI agent can influence the response you get.

Now, in Magic admin settings, Hex admins can edit a markdown file which gets passed directly as part of the system prompt for all SQL and Explore cell generations. This is great for bringing in business context that you want Hex’s AI to always know about.

📊 Chart style copy & paste​

You can now copy and paste styles from one chart to another in Hex — even between projects. It’s the fastest way to keep things looking sharp without reapplying your formatting to cell after cell after cell.

Only the styles that make sense will be carried over, while your chart’s underlying data remains unchanged.

General styles (like font size or legend position) are always copied, while data-dependent styles only transfer if the data lines up — same column name, aggregation, and time unit.

🔐 Snowflake OAuth permissions for schemas​

On the Enterprise plan, Hex can now enforce OAuth permissions from Snowflake in the data browser, tightening access controls and reducing accidental data exposure.

With this feature, users will only see schema objects they’re actually permissioned to view — including in data browser search and notebook cell typeahead.

Admins can enable this by selecting the new option to apply OAuth permissions to schema data on their Snowflake connection.

To support this, we’re also rolling out mandatory service accounts for OAuth connections, which you can read more about here.

🔽 Filter on aggregates​

You can now filter on aggregations directly in Explore charts and pivots — no code required. It’s a faster, easier way to slice your data and hone in on what matters, without breaking your flow.

Under the hood, this manifests as a HAVING clause in the auto-generated SQL, limiting results after they’ve been grouped and aggregated.

Other improvements​

• IBM Db2 data connection: We added a new data connection with IBM Db2 to our growing list of data source integrations.
• Redesigned filter layout in Explore: Now when you add filters to an exploration or Explore cell, they are displayed nicely across the top of the chart or pivot — making them easier to skim and edit.
• View underlying data from pivots in published apps: Users with “Can explore” access (or higher) can now click on a pivot value in a published app to dig into the underlying row-level data behind the aggregate. This works when the pivot was built in an Explore cell.