Here and Now Analytics
Part 1: Generative AI and its impact on data platform deployment.
Here and Now Analytics
The ever-evolving digital landscape has changed how we connect, consume and share information and the bite-size instant data we process. Data is embedded in every decision, interaction and process in our daily business workflows.
We have adapted to how we consume data and the volume of data we need to process to make effective decisions has increased, the Analytics and Business Intelligence market has continuously evolved and innovated to meet the demand for here-and-now analytics.
Analytics and Business Intelligence solutions have provided many benefits to businesses. Those that effectively adopted data as a core asset are able to show a material positive impact on their performance specifically focused on three pillars:
Valuable business insights and competitive analysis
Identifying trends, patterns, and improvement opportunities
Better customer satisfaction and strategic decisions
The development in technology capabilities to collect and store data combined with the exponential increase in online activity and digital consumption introduced a variety of new challenges, let’s go through some of them: According to recent research 66% of the global workforce have access to BI tools, but only 20% are confident in working with data and using it to make meaningful decisions.
Based upon these stats we can conclude that even today the majority of a corporate workforce are making decisions based on other factors which are not inherently data provided by the various tooling and platforms. This seems to be an astonishing conclusion especially when data is perceived to be so pivotal. However, this will feel familiar to most corporate employees or even midsize businesses.
The question is why? Why in the era of data are people not using it effectively to make decisions? we will attempt to explain why, focusing on two key points:
The business context – the complexity of a fast-changing market and business context and the possible interpretations and representation of conclusions from the data make a cohesive use of it across large number of users and use cases ineffective.
Too much information – we often see too many sources with too much information, really great charts and tables, but when it comes to a business question that needs the here and now answer, The process of choice to answer it is an ad hoc analysis that ends up with key business functions relying on a specific line of business applications rather than on the corporate data platform and more often manually gathering the data they believe they need via various excel sheet formulas and lookup models.
So what is the optimum way to address the here and now requirement? To answer that we need to make a few assumptions that often counter the old school corporate approach of one version of truth that applies to everything and everyone.
We believe in a flexible approach that relies on a single version of truth but many versions of interpretation of that truth.
Data as an asset:
Most medium to large size organisations will have by now a data platform of some sort, there are various names to it but in essence, it’s where the organisation collects structured and unstructured data and processes it to create consumable data models in a way that is managed, secure and compliant. The vast amount of data and the time it takes for the data teams to maintain and evolve the platform is almost always behind the time to market requirement. This in essence is the core of the issues – which creates the need for ad hoc analysis, leaving the data platform less used when the here and now requirement comes into play. this is a major challenge that companies struggled with, however, in the last 18 months, we see a change that is revolutionary and will have a material impact on the way data platforms are built and used. The key challenges of ad hoc analysis – almost in real time and the various interpretations of one version of truth can now be addressed effectively using the advancement and accessibility of AI and Gen AI .
Generative AI now allows business users to ask questions and get accurate business context answers that account for the main considerations:
Competitive and external information
The company owns data and trends
The real time nature of the answers creates an incentive to use it bypassing the frustration of contacting data teams and asking for it. or alternatively drilling down and exploring the data using the various tools available.
In addition, whilst the ability to ask any question from your GEN AI agent is incredibly powerful, it also creates a trusted feeling that no question is a ‘stupid’ question that I should know the answer to – hence will create a significant engagement with the data in a more creative way.
We conclude that bridging the various gaps requires dealing with the contradiction between a single version of truth and having the right information accessible in a matter of seconds will drive the quality of decision making to levels not seen before. This does create a new question – why can’t the AI make the decisions – which is a valid one, however operationally there is still a significant gap in the generic AI ability to execute its own decision, this is even more acute in a corporate environment which often have regulatory and political constraints, this gap will take many years to bridge by evolving regulations and providing more time for corporates to ‘trust’ the various Ais in play. we already seeing a few fully automated companies starting to shift the market.
About Camden AI
Camden AI delivers innovative data-centric solutions focused on analytics and AI, dedicated to providing customers with innovative tailored technology and attentive service.
We support companies to design and redesign data platforms, we do this across the various life cycle from solution architecture to development to managed service. We understand the benefits of delivering insights at the point of need, inside portals, and workflow applications, which makes it possible for users to take immediate action without needing to leave their day-to-day work.
We are happy to explore how AI can help your company be more efficient, innovative and competitive.
