The term of business intelligence (BI) was coined by the Gartner Group in the middle 1990s. However the concept is much older; it has its roots in the Management Information System (MIS) reporting system of the 1970s. During that period reporting system were static, two dimensional and had no analytical capabilities. The concept of executive information system (EIS) emerged in the early 1980s. This concept expanded computerized support to top level managers and executives.
Some of the capabilities introduced were dynamic multidimensional (adhoc or on demand) reporting, forecasting and prediction, trend analysis, drill-down to details, status access and critical success factors. These features appeared in dozens of commercial products until the middle 1990s.
Then the same capabilities and some new ones appeared under the name BI. Today a good BI based enterprise information system contains all the information executives need.
The original concept of EIS was transformed into BI. By 2005 BI systems started to include artificial intelligence capabilities as well as powerful analytical capabilities.