As Artificial Intelligence continues to build momentum, it’s natural to wonder where this leaves the humble analyst, a staple in every data-driven organisation? After all, AI can churn through masses of data, generate insights, and even create visualisations more quickly and often with equivalent skill as any competent analyst.
My view is that AI won’t replace analysts, rather transform the role, making their expertise more critical than ever in a world where ethical AI decision making is crucial.
There are 5 areas I feel are going to become more important in the analyst’s jobs spec over the next few years as AI continues to become mainstream.
1. Strategic Oversight: AI is powerful and offers many advantages but is not infallible. Analysts are essential to help validate AI-generated insights, identify anomalies in data pipelines, and ensure outputs align with organisational objectives. Their critical thinking ensures that decisions are not solely driven by blind trust in algorithms, are explainable and therefore make sense.
2. Asking the Right Questions: We know AI excels at answering questions and analysts excel at asking the right ones. They can help frame problems, define suitable goals, and set the direction for AI models, ensuring the technology focuses on meaningful challenges.
3. Domain Expertise: While AI processes data, analysts bring contextual knowledge to the party. Their understanding of relevant contextual nuances helps interpret insights and findings in ways that resonate with stakeholders, enabling actionable recommendations that make sense to end users.
4. Ethics and Bias Mitigation: Analysts play a key role in ensuring responsible AI use by monitoring for biases, promoting fairness, ensuring ethical guidelines are followed and maintaining transparency in data-driven decision-making.
5. Human-Centric Communication: Translating AI-driven insights into compelling narratives and data driven stories remains uniquely human and domain specific. Analysts connect data to strategic outcomes, persuading teams and stakeholders to act on findings.
In short, AI amplifies what analysts can achieve, automating repetitive tasks and freeing them up to focus on strategic, creative, and ethical challenges in data-driven decision making. The future isn’t about choosing between analysts and AI, it’s about maximising the synergy between them and supercharging their combined value to the organisation.
If you’re keen to know more about putting AI into action with a clear strategy, watch this space for more content as we explore ‘From Plan to Progress’ over the coming months. In the meantime, if you have an AI and data problem, get in touch with one of our experts at transformation@transformuk.com because AI is only as smart as your data.