Last year they acuired Empirical Systems, "an eight-person artificial intelligence startup based in Cambridge, Mass" [1].

However, 'Tableau Research' [2] has existed for years and its researchers regularly publish at major academic visualisation conferences like IEEE VIS (InfoVis/VAST) and EuroVis (see [3]).

[1]: https://www.geekwire.com/2018/tableau-acquires-mit-ai-spinof...

[2]: https://research.tableau.com/

[3]: https://research.tableau.com/papers