Hex built a suite of analytical evals to test data-analysis models and found Claude Fable 5 outperforms its Opus 4.x predecessors by 10–15%, nailing both semantically modeled and raw-data tasks with fewer mistakes. They’ve also designed a tougher “Frontier” benchmark for long-horizon, open-ended scenarios, where Fable 5’s careful assumptions and cross-checks boost its pass rate to around 58%.

The article discusses the shortcomings of achieving high accuracy in Text-to-SQL systems, emphasizing that 90% accuracy is insufficient for enterprise applications. It highlights the need for rigorous evaluation frameworks, like Spider 2.0, to ensure reliability and trust in AI-driven analytics.

The author shares their shift from using Excel and Google Sheets to DuckDB and SQL for handling CSV files, highlighting the efficiency of querying data directly. They discuss the benefits of using SQL for data manipulation and invite readers to share their own CSV handling tips.