Will business analysts be replaced by ai? Future of BA as a career.

How did business analysis emerge?

As technology became more widely adopted and more technology-based companies emerged, there was a growing need for professionals who could understand both the technical and business aspects of these companies and effectively communicate between the two groups. These individuals were able to bridge the gap between technology and business professionals, ensuring that the needs of both sides were understood and met.

With this, the field of business analysis and the role of a business analyst emerged.

What are the role and responsibilities of a business analyst?

Business analysts play a crucial role in a company by helping the tech team deliver effective results according to the clients, companies, or customers' needs. Business analysts are responsible for helping companies improve their products or services, processes, or software through data analysis.

Key responsibilities of a business analyst include:

• Communicating between tech and non-tech teams.
• Communicating with stakeholders to ensure results will satisfy their needs.
• Identifying and analyzing business needs
• Tracking requirements and progress
• Recognizing potential opportunities
• Budgeting
• Reporting updates
• Documenting requriements
• Testing and managing
• Planning and monitoring
• Data analysis

Types of Business Analysts:

A role of a business analyst is non-technical and does not have to include coding. All business analysts fall into these categories/types:

• Process analysis BAs – focusing on internal processes
• Product development BAs – focusing on developing new products
• Project management BAs – focusing on managing one of the above processes.
• Generalist business analysts

Many companies do not have separate BAs for each category, tend to group the above three in one, and may expect a BA to handle all three aspects. They may have an opening for the job title of a business analyst and the description of the skills they need in a BA for their organization. Also, it is crucial to note that the role and responsibility of a business analyst may differ from company to company.

Skills of a business analyst

Soft skills:

• Effective communication and interpersonal skills
• Presentation skills
• Analytical and critical thinking skills
• Understanding and listening skills
• Time management skills
• Decision-making skills

Tech skills:

• Programming languages - Like Python, R
• Creating reports - Tableau, Power BI
• Databases- SQL, NoSQL
• Microsoft Excel

Why does an organization need a business analyst? | Why do companies hire business analysts?

To comprehend if AI can replace a business analyst, let us understand why a company requires a business analyst and why they hire them.

Some of the reasons include:

• In case of new changes in an organization, it becomes challenging for the employees/staff/executives to adapt to it. BAs help the organization with upcoming changes.
• BAs effectively communicate across tech aspects of a project to the non-tech teams so everyone understands a project better.
• BA puts in place all the requirements of a project and ensures that all the important pieces fit together.
• Further, a BA also ensures that all the changes are implemented perfectly and that it meets the client's requirements.
• Constantly communicating with the team about the updates they need to implement is also one of the responsibilities of a BA.

A company with a BA will perform better at understanding its customer's needs, deliver effective and satisfactory results, and speed up the completion of a high-quality project. Therefore, the value of a Business Analyst (BA) is increasing, and as a result, companies are eager to hire them.

Which tasks of a Business Analyst can AI take over? And What tasks and responsibilities of a business analyst can be enhanced or supported using AI/automation?

According to a replaced by robot article, it is less likely/ there is only a 13% chance that a business analyst's job will get automated or taken over by AI.

willrobotstakemyjob.com shows an automation risk of 69%.

Let's understand what some tasks can be automated.

There are some technical tasks that AI will take over or will provide help in. Some are mentioned below:

1) Data Analysis

A lot of data analysis tasks can and will be automated. Working on large and complex data can be a challenging task. AI will help in the analysis and processing of data. BAs can further spot trends and gain insights from the results.

• Predictive analysis

AI can help BAs to recognize trends/patterns that will help them make better decisions for the future.

• Extended analysis

AI can effectively and efficiently assist in the process of preparing, cleaning, organizing, and visualizing data, as well as interpreting results.

2) Process automation

Processes that are repetitive such as data entry and processing will be automated. This will leave BAs with time for more strategic tasks.

3)Decision making

AI will help business analysts to improve their decision-making process, and arrive at more comprehensive and accurate conclusions.

Which tasks of a Business Analyst will AI not be able to take over?

It is unlikely that an AI will be involved,

• In a discussion, or negotiate with the stakeholders.
• AI will help in the decision-making processes but evaluating the decision will be taken over by business analysts.
• Communicating and training team members.
• Understanding the project requirements.
• Effective management.
• Hold meetings and discussions to get to an accurate conclusion that everyone can agree upon.
• Analyze the impact of a decision on the company or project.
• Considering the new requirements and changes, managing them, and keeping a track of updates, and their impacts.
• Time management.
• Analyzing customer behavior.
• Recommending new ideas.

Business Analysts and Data Analysts (Impact of AI).

The role of a business analyst and a data analyst are almost similar and have only minor differences. Also, the roles and responsibilities of the two may be different in different domains and vary from company to company. Business analysts work more on addressing, understanding, and analyzing business needs. A Business analyst does not need to code or have coding skills. Data analysts work more on the technical aspects. Data analysts have hard technical and coding skills.

Impact of AI

As AI comes becomes better, more data analysis may get automated.

• This will open up choices for data analysts to move towards becoming business analysts, data scientists, or data engineering.
• Or because of AI, the role of a data analyst and business analyst may merge into one.
• It is worth noting that the competition in the Business analyst space may increase.

Conclusion:

Will AI replace business analysts?

AI will not completely take over, and the two will co-exist.AI will do the data collection, processing, and visualization part. More effective and accurate results will be delivered by a business analyst.

However, it is beneficial to keep an eye on the new AI tools in the market. Here we covered the role and importance of business analysts, and why businesses need them. What skills do they possess, and how do they make a difference in an organization? What impact AI will have, what tasks of a business analyst's job will AI help in, what AI will not take over, and will AI take over a business analyst's job?