So if you’re a sci-fi nerd or film buff, you might already know this but Blade Runner centers around the idea that Replicants (who are really just glorified androids) are bioengineered to be “more human than human” so they can be integrated into society for a short time to join the workforce. If you're just working, minding your own business, you probably won’t run into a Blade Runner. Thinking of going rogue? Well then you’ll find yourself in Rick Deckard’s crosshairs.
Harassing androids with his Voight-Kampf test might be Deckard’s MO, but the future of AI could make interrogation an imperative part of BAs day-to-day too. Cue Matt O’Connor (Principal Consultant) and Genevieve Ikazoboh (Senior Business Consultant) and Project AIBA. Though this sounds like something out of cyberpunk film itself, it’s more of a Community of Practice for Business Analysts.
By understanding AI models' capabilities and limitations, BAs can make informed decisions about when and how to leverage Gen AI tools effectively.
Generative AI, commonly known as Gen AI, empowers machines to produce data or content autonomously. It goes beyond traditional AI approaches by creating entirely new information, such as images, music, text and video, based on patterns learned from vast datasets.
And the same can be said about AI. Some of the ways AI is changing BA’s role for good include improved efficiency, enhanced accuracy, scalability, streamlined tasks, enhanced decision making and a way to uncover new insights. But with the good comes the bad and security and privacy concerns – along with a level of difficulty in interpreting and validating outputs – can't be denied. We also know that AI models have the potential to perpetuate or amplify existing biases present in the training data, leading to unfair or discriminatory outcomes when skewed by flawed algorithms or datasets, or unconscious biases encoded by developers.
But how will this shape the future for BAs?
We don’t need oracular powers to foresee AI being a powerful efficiency tool, it already is when it comes to analysing data at the blink of an eye, but Matt and Genevieve also predict a few other ways in which AI could impact their roles directly:
However, there will be a continued emphasis on human oversight and interpretation of AI outputs. Just like the Replicants, AI can aim to be “more human than human” but the context and lived experience just isn’t there. For example, in text summarisation, AI might be good at extracting key insights, but BAs know it’s important to first create input/context for text summarisation based on business objectives. The human touch also mean BAs can evaluate the relevance and accuracy of the summarisation.
Still, we maintain equilibrium is the way forward; employ AI for efficiency, but with human oversight and by following the right steps along the way.
If you want to know more about what our BA practice can do to improve your business or help your business adapt to AI, then get in touch at matthew.oconnor@transformuk.comor reach out if you want to know more about the Community of Practice.
In the meantime, grab your trench coat, we’re all Deckard now.