Humans have been collecting and sharing information since the advent of the known written word. Among the earliest preserved examples of writing are the Cuneiform tablets documenting the deliveries and distributions of grain throughout ancient Sumer.1 With finite resources and literate scribes, governing bodies found it imperative to document and analyze their supply chains. Today, with high-performance computing and analytic algorithms, people can seamlessly extract valuable insights, enhance their understanding of products, services, and processes, and display and disseminate those insights via tablets (of the modern silicon variety).
One of the most recent advancements in business intelligence is augmented analytics. This approach applies artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to enhance and automate the collection, analysis, and reporting processes for business data. Augmented analytics can help organizations of all sizes across industries become more data-driven by bringing data insights into their daily workflows and planning. Some benefits of augmented analytics include the following:
Prepare data faster
Data analysts say that data preparations are their most time-consuming task.2 By leveraging augmented analytics, data scientists or anyone gleaning insights from their data can combine and segment information from multiple sources much faster than traditional manual processes. Plus, enhanced data preparation minimizes human error, generating more accurate data sets to analyze. Through automation, organizations can save significant time and enable data scientists to focus more energy on modeling and reporting.
Automate insights
AI/ML algorithms are more adept at detecting correlations between data sets and uncovering hidden patterns than traditional data analysis methods. Augmented analytics can be configured to intelligently visualize those insights in easily consumable graphs, charts, and reports and automatically reveal relevant findings to the right people in the right departments at the right time. Accelerating time to insight can pay huge dividends, as 78% of surveyed technology and data professionals believe faster data analytics correlate to revenue growth.3
Democratize data analysis
Often, user-friendly, augmented analytics tools and platforms can make data analysis accessible to various team members across an organization. Improving data access and literacy results in more informed decision-making and gives people the confidence to act on the uncovered insights. In a recent survey, 98% of executives agree that it’s somewhat important or very important to intensify analysis efforts within the next one to three years.4 Democratizing data analysis with augmented analytics can significantly empower leaders to reach this goal.
Become a data-driven organization
Augmented analytics can be instrumental in building and enabling a strong data-focused culture within a business, where decisions are supported by numbers and analysis, not just gut instincts. Easy access to fast and automated insights from accurate data sets can empower organizations to make organizational moves that improve efficiencies across departments.
Companies prioritizing a data-driven strategy can become more competitive by uncovering a greater understanding of the market, customer needs, or behaviors. They can also positively influence product offerings, development, pricing, and marketing initiatives. It’s no surprise that 74% of best-in-class companies rely on data-driven decision-making.5
- The Metropolitan Museum, Cuneiform tablet: administrative account concerning the distribution of barley and emmer
- Anaconda, 2023 State of Data Science, September 2023
- Ocient, Beyond Big Data: The Rise of Hyperscale, August 2022
- Ibid.
- BARC Research, BARC Data Culture Survey 23 – How To Liberalize Data Access To Empower Data Users, November 2022
