Hey there, have you heard about CHAT WITH YOUR DATA™? There's been some concern that utilising natural language technology in Self-Service BI & Analytics might replace human analysts and engineers, but that's not the case. It's not here (yet ;) to replace us with robotic overlords, but to help us work smarter and faster. Chat-based self-service analytics, such as CHAT WITH YOUR DATA™, (which uses ChatGPT-like conversational interface), can actually help us do our jobs better and faster and increase productivity.
Why human cognition is necessary?
Sure, ChatGPT can write SQL scripts and automate some of the simpler tasks, but let's not forget that it's still just a computer program. Chat-based analytics still requires human cognition and creativity to understand what the data means and how it should be interpreted. Each business has a unique way of dealing with its data, and it takes a human brain to comprehend how all that data coalesces into something meaningful. This is where data analysts and engineers come in. You can't just feed it a bunch of numbers and expect it to understand the meaning behind them - that's our job!
Even with CHAT WITH YOUR DATA™ in action, analysts and engineers are still needed to prepare the availability of data to be consumed via chat interface. They need to ensure that the data is accurate, relevant, and organized in a way that makes sense. Additionally, analysts and engineers need to map meaning to an expected outcome and interpret the results that the chat-based analytics tool provides.
As data analysts and engineers, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our productivity and streamline our workflow. There have been concerns that these new technologies could eventually replace human analysts and engineers, but that's simply not the case. In fact, chat-based analytics can be a valuable tool to help us work smarter and faster.
One benefit of chat-based analytics is that it can help bridge the gap between what people want and what they actually need. From a report development consultant’s perspective, business users often struggle to articulate what they want, but with chat-based analytics, anyone who can think critically can query in natural language and have a dashboard auto-generated for them. This can save time and reduce frustration for both analysts and business stakeholders.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the skills required to be a successful data analyst or engineer are no longer relevant. Data cleansing, good data modeling, and extracting scope and requirements are still extremely important and will continue to be so in the future, even with the availability of chat-based analytics.
Another trend we're seeing is that mainstream BI & Analytics platforms are providing more functionality to surface key data elements to the organization. This data used to be hidden behind the data warehouse wall, but now platforms like Chat with your Data are providing Knowledge Graph for this purpose. For business users, a Knowledge Graph can be a valuable tool for quickly finding the information they need. With a well-organized and curated Knowledge Graph, users can easily navigate and explore the data, finding the relationships between entities and gaining insights into the data that might not be immediately apparent.
While this is a positive development, it still requires human analysts and engineers to ensure that the data is accurate, relevant, and organized in a way that makes sense. Ultimately, chat-based analytics and tools like CHAT WITH YOUR DATA™ can be a valuable addition to our team. They can help us automate some of the more tedious tasks and free up time to focus on the more important and creative parts of our jobs, such as analyzing and interpreting data and coming up with innovative solutions.
However, it's important to remember that we still need to do the heavy lifting and prepare the data for the chat interface, ensure its accuracy and relevance, and map meaning to an expected outcome. In short, CHAT WITH YOUR DATA™ is not the enemy, but rather a valuable increment to our team that we can use to our advantage. It can help us automate the simpler tasks and focus on the more important and creative parts of our jobs - like analyzing and interpreting data, and coming up with innovative solutions.
It's like having a personal assistant who can crunch numbers and churn out insights in seconds. And who knows, maybe one day we'll even be able to teach it how to tell a good joke…
If you're interested in learning more about how to start chatting with your data, contact us today and book a free demo to see our chat-based analytics advisor in action!
