As the threads between business and technology become even more intertwined, business analysts’ abilities to uncover insights and trends is rapidly evolving using cutting-edge AI tools, making them an indispensable resource across a variety of organizations.
Layering existing and varied skill sets with artificial intelligence allows business analysts to support and innovate for stakeholders in ways that were not foreseen even a few years ago. Embracing these new technologies broadens existing abilities and enables proficiencies, such as synthesizing available data and client inputs faster, integrating those findings, and then connecting the dots to find an ideal business solution. However, given the rapid evolution of AI, the landscape can feel overwhelming, making it difficult to know where to start.
Let’s outline a few specific applications where AI tools can immediately boost an analyst's productivity:
It saves time with summarizing
Quickly extract key points from long articles, documents, and webpages. This helps locate relevant information without getting overwhelmed by excess details. Imagine you've spent hours compiling sources for an upcoming report, but now are challenged to make sense of all the information that you gathered. Instead of reading through potentially hundreds of pages of complex data and analysis to find relevant details, you could leverage AI to summarize the key findings of each source, allowing you to quickly identify the most relevant. Obtaining summaries up front allows you to assess if an in-depth review is needed or if another source should be pursued. You can tailor your prompt by including specific details about your industry and role—such as asking how the information applies to an analyst working in financial services—to enhance the AI's ability to generate summaries that are directly relevant to your needs.
It makes suggestions and visualizes data
Struggling to recall an obscure Excel function or Word feature? AI can jog your memory and provide relevant examples. Rather than attempting to memorize every option, simply describe what you want to accomplish and let AI suggest a starting point. Some tools even allow you to provide screenshots, removing the need to enter every detail manually. For analysts, this can help transform raw data into compelling visualizations and actionable insights. By quickly retrieving the right functions or features, analysts can efficiently perform complex calculations, create dynamic reports, and uncover trends that might otherwise go unnoticed. This not only saves time, but also empowers analysts to deliver deeper, data-driven recommendations to stakeholders.
It automates everything
Implement macros to streamline repetitive data tasks with the help of AI. For analysts juggling multiple responsibilities, automation can be a lifesaver. Automating tasks such as extracting data, cleaning datasets, and generating reports not only alleviates a significant amount of manual effort from day-to-day operations but also frees up valuable time. Ask AI about the game changing PERSONAL.XLSB workbook if you haven’t discovered it yet! With routine tasks efficiently managed, analysts can focus their energy on better assessing results, being more strategic, innovating, and furthering process enhancements.
It brings intent to life
Beyond grammar and clarity checks, AI can help ensure your writing accurately conveys the intended meaning. When phrasing seems awkward, get AI to suggest alternatives. For analysts who often communicate complex data and insights, these tools are invaluable. AI can refine reports, proposals, and presentations to be more persuasive and understandable for a non-technical audience. By suggesting clearer ways to present findings, AI can help analysts convey their message with greater impact. This ensures that key insights are communicated effectively, supporting better business decisions.
It sparks ideation
Leverage AI to fully develop ideas and recommendations and explore differing opinions. When proposing something new, ask for counter-perspectives and potential pushbacks to proactively address gaps and plan follow-ups. For analysts, this could help ideate new ways to improve processes within your team or suggest new insights to dive into.
It breaks down research
Ask AI to explain unfamiliar terminology and concepts. If the responses don’t sink in the first time, ask AI to "ELI5" (Explain Like I’m 5). Unfamiliar with a company? Let AI provide an overview of their products and services in a simple way and don’t be afraid to push back to further hone responses to meet your needs. This can help analysts gain background faster than traditional research methods.
It gives coding frameworks
With so many syntax variations across platforms, AI is great at providing tailored code examples for specific databases and languages. Need help to understand a complex script or function? Leverage AI! Starting from square one? Have AI provide a template/framework to accelerate the request. Whether it’s optimizing a SQL query to enhance database performance or developing a Python script for data analysis, AI can guide you through the process and boost your learning curve. This enables analysis to quickly adapt to diverse coding environments, troubleshoot effectively, and develop with greater efficiency.
This sampling demonstrates AI’s power to boost productivity. As analysts, having tools that accelerate learning, enhance work, and generate ideas allows us to better support stakeholders by being more efficient, knowledgeable, and creative problem-solvers.
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