Quill

Problem

Organizations generate enormous volumes of structured data every day—from financial transactions and operational metrics to customer behavior and IoT signals. Yet most of this information remains locked in dashboards, spreadsheets, and reports that are difficult to interpret. Decision‑makers often struggle to extract meaning quickly, and non‑technical stakeholders are left behind. The result is slow insights, poor communication, and missed opportunities.

Solution

Quill is a natural language generation (NLG) platform that automatically transforms structured data into clear, human readable narratives. Developed by Narrative Science, Quill connects directly to data sources such as business intelligence platforms, databases, or APIs, and produces written explanations that highlight trends, anomalies, and outcomes.

Instead of staring at charts or raw numbers, users receive contextualized stories that explain not just what the data shows, but why it matters. This makes insights accessible to everyone in the organization, regardless of technical expertise.

Benefits

• Accessibility: Democratizes data by converting complex analytics into plain language.
• Speed: Automates reporting, delivering real-time narratives without manual effort.
• Clarity: Provides context and explanation, not just numbers.
• Scalability: Generates thousands of reports across industries.

Technology & Commercialization Status

Quill was commercialized by Narrative Science, a Chicago-based company founded in 2010 by McCormick Professors Kristian Hammond and Larry Birnbaum, together with Nick Beil. Building on Northwestern research in artificial intelligence and natural language generation, the company developed Quill into one of the earliest enterprise platforms capable of automatically transforming structured data into written narratives.

The technology gained adoption among organizations seeking to automate the creation of financial reports, operational summaries, customer communications, and other data-driven content. As demand for data analytics and business intelligence grew, Quill helped demonstrate the commercial value of natural language generation in enterprise settings.

Narrative Science’s success established the company as an early leader in applied AI and automated storytelling. In 2021, the company was acquired by Salesforce, which integrated Quill’s technology into the Tableau analytics platform, extending its capabilities to a broader community of business users and data analysts.

Today, Quill’s technology continues to influence how organizations communicate insights from data, illustrating the successful translation of Northwestern-developed AI research into widely adopted enterprise software.

Northwestern Inventors

Larry Birnbaum, PhD
Professor of Computer Science
McCormick School of Engineering

Kristian J. Hammond, PhD
Bill and Cathy Osborn Professor of Computer Science
McCormick School of Engineering