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Title

Nexthink fine-tunes a 7B Llama model on Amazon SageMaker to translate natural language into NQL queries for Nexthink Assist

derived · high
…k leveraged SageMaker’s capabilities to build their AI-powered query assistant. The team used SageMaker’s distributed training capabilities to fine-tune a 7 billion parameter LLama LLM, incorporating advanced techniques like Low Rank Adaptation (LoRA). SageMaker’s managed infrastructure allowed Nexthink to focus on model quality r…
…o ask questions in plain language and get answers instantly, without expertise. This capability is a powered by a tool called NL2NQL, responsible for translating natural language questions into precise NQL queries. Early versions of NL2NQL relied solely on prompt engineering. This approach inv…

Description

Swiss software company Nexthink moved its NL2NQL tool, behind the Nexthink Assist AI agent, from prompt engineering and RAG to a LoRA fine-tuned 7 billion parameter Llama model on Amazon SageMaker. It built a golden evaluation dataset and used Claude 3.5 Sonnet on Amazon Bedrock as an LLM-as-judge for labeling. The source reports a 30% improvement in query accuracy and 80% reduction in token usage.

derived · high
…decision paid off significantly: the results after fine-tuning were impressive: a 30% improvement in query accuracy, 80% reduction in token usage, and comprehensive support across their entire data model. Best Practices for Enterprise Fine-Tuning Nexthink journey surfaced several be…
…esponsible for translating natural language questions into precise NQL queries. Early versions of NL2NQL relied solely on prompt engineering. This approach involves carefully crafting instructions to guide the LLM’s behav…
…bmitted them to Claude 3.5 with a different role: not labeling but criticizing. The LLM acted as a judge, verifying that the LLM-generated label matched the query exactly; if there was doubt, the sample was discarded. Research shows that LLM-as-a-judge achieves over 80% agreement with human evalu…

Company

Nexthink

derived · high
…ced capabilities accessible to every user. Democratizing DEX Insights Nexthink, a Swiss Software company is a pioneering leader in digital employee experience (DEX). With a mission to empower IT teams and elevate workplace productivity, Nexthin…

Country

Switzerland

derived · high
…ced capabilities accessible to every user. Democratizing DEX Insights Nexthink, a Swiss Software company is a pioneering leader in digital employee experience (DEX). With a mission to empower IT teams and elevate workplace productivity, Nexthin…

Industry

Technology & Software

classification · high
…ced capabilities accessible to every user. Democratizing DEX Insights Nexthink, a Swiss Software company is a pioneering leader in digital employee experience (DEX). With a mission to empower IT teams and elevate workplace productivity, Nexthin…

Problem

Nexthink's NQL query language is powerful but creates a barrier for non-technical users, while demand for DEX insights was growing among other IT teams, HR and employees. Prompt engineering and RAG left performance inconsistent for complex queries, and prompting a general-purpose LLM brought high token costs and slow responses over the full data model.

derived · high
…k Query Language (NQL) to retrieve information for analyzing complex IT issues. While powerful, these capabilities create a barrier for non-technical users. The emergence of LLMs and AI agents creates the ideal opportunity to finally de…
…turning natural language directly into NQL queries with high accuracy at scale. The team struggled with complex prompts, high costs from token usage, and slow response times when working with Nexthink’s full data model. These problems showed that using just a general-purpose LLM with prompts wouldn…

Solution

Nexthink fine-tuned a 7 billion parameter Llama model with LoRA on Amazon SageMaker to power NL2NQL, the tool behind the Nexthink Assist agent that translates natural language into NQL queries. It built a golden dataset of questions and queries, first annotated by employees through SageMaker Ground Truth and then labelled by Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet on Amazon Bedrock, with the LLM also acting as a judge and humans validating samples.

derived · high
…e approach significantly reduced cognitive load and increased annotation speed. Nexthink used Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth to create a structured annotation workflow, enabling them to distribute tasks across their internal workforce, track progr…
…olution. The team implemented a new labeling pipeline where an LLM—specifically Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet running on Amazon Bedrock —now generates the labels automatically. They evolved their initial labeling pi…
…k leveraged SageMaker’s capabilities to build their AI-powered query assistant. The team used SageMaker’s distributed training capabilities to fine-tune a 7 billion parameter LLama LLM, incorporating advanced techniques like Low Rank Adaptation (LoRA). SageMaker’s managed infrastructure allowed Nexthink to focus on model quality r…

Business value

After fine-tuning, the source reports a 30% improvement in query accuracy, an 80% reduction in token usage and support across Nexthink's entire data model. The source also notes the trade-off of increased complexity: fine-tuning needs substantial compute, high-quality datasets and dedicated engineering effort. Figures are as reported in the AWS blog post.

derived · high
…decision paid off significantly: the results after fine-tuning were impressive: a 30% improvement in query accuracy, 80% reduction in token usage, and comprehensive support across their entire data model. Best Practices for Enterprise Fine-Tuning Nexthink journey surfaced several be…
…ken usage (-80%) and inference costs, as well as better handling of edge cases. The trade-off is increased complexity: fine-tuning requires substantial compute, high-quality datasets, and dedicated engineering effort. How Nexthink Evaluated and Fine-tuned Tools for Their AI Agents To develop and…

AI capabilities

Generative AI, Conversational AI

classification · medium
…Amazon SageMaker JumpStart , Customer Solutions , Generative AI Permalink Share AI agents powered by large language models (LLMs) are reshaping enterprise software by turning complex tasks into conversational experiences. Instead of requiring deep expertise, users can now interact with systems in nat…

Technology

Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Bedrock, Claude

classification · high
…olution. The team implemented a new labeling pipeline where an LLM—specifically Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet running on Amazon Bedrock —now generates the labels automatically. They evolved their initial labeling pi…
…e approach significantly reduced cognitive load and increased annotation speed. Nexthink used Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth to create a structured annotation workflow, enabling them to distribute tasks across their internal workforce, track progr…

Deployment model

Cloud

classification · medium
…od their data structures without needing extensive explanations in each prompt. Amazon SageMaker AI provided the infrastructure and tools needed to fine-tune LLMs efficiently. Nexthink leveraged SageMaker’s capabilities to build their AI-powered query ass…

Deployment options

cloud

classification · medium
…od their data structures without needing extensive explanations in each prompt. Amazon SageMaker AI provided the infrastructure and tools needed to fine-tune LLMs efficiently. Nexthink leveraged SageMaker’s capabilities to build their AI-powered query ass…

Implementation approach

Nexthink moved from prompt engineering to RAG and then to fine-tuning. Its labelling moved from manual annotation by employees and interns to LLM-generated labels checked by an LLM judge, with human experts periodically reviewing samples.

derived · high
…esponsible for translating natural language questions into precise NQL queries. Early versions of NL2NQL relied solely on prompt engineering. This approach involves carefully crafting instructions to guide the LLM’s behav…
…ry . Instead of translating questions to NQL queries, they reversed the process—providing employees and interns with real anonymized NQL queries and asking them to write corresponding natural language questions. This inverse approach significantly reduced cognitive load and increased annot…
…with human evaluators , matching the agreement rate between humans themselves. To safeguard against quality drift, Nexthink still had human experts periodically review samples of LLM-labeled queries. While this approach allowed to gain in speed and consistency, Nexthink observed…

Headline outcome

derived · high
…decision paid off significantly: the results after fine-tuning were impressive: a 30% improvement in query accuracy, 80% reduction in token usage, and comprehensive support across their entire da…

Use case type

Analytics augmentation

classification · medium
…o ask questions in plain language and get answers instantly, without expertise. This capability is a powered by a tool called NL2NQL, responsible for translating natural language questions into precise NQL queries. Early versions of NL2NQL relied solely on prompt engineering. This approach inv…
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19 Oct 2026, 06:05 UTC
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