In early 2000s Search engines revolutionized the process of accessing the information, similarly we are on the verge of getting into a new era of Technology i.e. Artificial Intelligence (AI).
This article highlights the importance of AI For business analysts, exploring how AI is transforming business analysis and why BAs need AI expertise to stay ahead.
AI is automating processes, amplifying productivity and improving decision-making, to reap these benefits & to stay relevant, businesses are integrating AI-driven solutions. Walking in organization’s footsteps, Business Analysts (BA) must adapt to AI and future proof your career.
Traditionally In Software development life cycle (SDLC) Business Analyst are responsible for gathering requirements, analysing business needs, and writing user stories which will be used for software development. They bridge the gap between technical teams and business stakeholders. As AI going to be integral to everything the role of Business Analyst is also evolving.
AI is the Next Normal
AI’s integration into daily life and businesses is rapidly accelerating, making it the “next normal” and a critical tool. Organizations expect their workforce to use AI tools to deliver the better output at the daily job. The demand for AI-literate Business Analysts is increasing and Software Organizations want BAs to deliver requirements quickly & accurately. As a starting point for BA to be more effective in the role, you must do following:
- Understand AI fundamentals: Knowledge of machine learning (ML), Natural language processing (NLP), and AI ethics is essential.
- Prompt Engineering: Prompts are the inputs given to AI tools to get desired results. Learn the skill of writing prompts or asking accurate questions.
- Use GenAI tools: Start using any GenAI tools like ChatGPT, Co-pilot, Gemini in delivering daily jobs.
Ready to master the power of AI in your business analysis role? Explore our comprehensive AI Certification for Business Analysts course.
Comprehensive Solutions with AI
While building any solution BA must match the expectations of customer & end users. In the process of finalizing the features & functions BA does the secondary research through internet. He spends time in understanding the best practices & conduct competitor study so that apt features can be proposed to clients. However, the research activity may take longer time, and as a human one can miss out some important factors.
Use of AI enhances the research output; BA should utilise summarising capacity of the AI tools where these tools will bring all the data available with them related to the subject you are trying to research. Combine the AI inputs along with normal search on the Internet as a result, the accuracy of your research will be higher, and the information will be comprehensive to build the better solution.
Another crucial input in requirement framing is the data analysis and prediction of trends. Using the conventional tools of Data Analysis may result in standard outcome but with the AI-enabled study of data will produce predictive trends. AI is changing how these tasks are performed:
- Data-driven decision-making: AI provides real-time insights, enabling BAs to make more informed recommendations.
- Automated requirement analysis: AI-powered tools can analyse historical project data to suggest requirements.
- Anomaly detection: AI identifies inconsistencies in data, helping BAs detect potential issues well in advance.
AI as Productivity Amplifier
Use of AI tools in daily jobs amplify your productivity multi-fold. As a BA you do some time-consuming tasks. With the AI assistants the tasks can be delivered in no time & with accuracy. Considering the work of writing Minutes of Meeting, the usual process is, stakeholder interviews or requirement elicitation workshop happens over online Meeting, the first deliverable expected from BA is to send the Minutes of Meeting highlighting the key points discussed and the action items. Conventionally after the meeting BAs will have to go through the entire meeting recording and note down the points in the standard format to create Minutes. Going through the entire recording is a tedious & time consuming.
BA should get hold of AI tools to deal with this problem. First option is if any integrated AI tool like Microsoft Copilot is already subscribed to your ID, then this tool will join along with you in the stakeholder meeting and at the end of the meeting it will auto-generate the minutes very clearly which you can easily modify based on requirements. If that’s not available then Second option is, Download the meeting transcript and then upload it as an input to any GenAI tool which will generate all the minutes in the required format.
Here one can clearly observe the reduction in efforts with the use of AI tools.
Ready to master the power of AI in your business analysis role? Explore our comprehensive AI Certification for Business Analysts course.
Identify AI Use Cases
We see flurry of activities happening within the application layer of the AI for building new use cases. All the software organizations want to offer AI integrated solutions to keep themself relevant in the businesses while solving customer’s real-world problems. As a BA you should contribute to identifying new use cases of the AI technology aligning with business objectives. Any such cases that really add value to customer and solve their problem will always be appreciated, giving you upper hand in comparison to your peers.
To identify such cases BA will have to educate themselves with the thorough understanding of AI.
Collaborate with AI Agent
In software development future is of the AI agents, they are software programs designed to perform specific tasks autonomously, based on goals and context. Many of the programming task will be done by AI agents that is where BAs will have to develop a skill to Collaborate with them.
Traditionally Business Analyst write user stories based on the business requirements & collaborate with the software developers to get the solution developed. In the AI world the scenario may change & the user stories written will be directly consumed by AI agents to produce the code which will be then moderated by software developers.
Interaction with these AI agents could be through Natural Languages & the User stories written to describe the requirements. These inputs should be accurate so that error free codes will be produced by AI Agents. Further to this BA should be ready for all the different possibilities of interacting with AI agents as the advancements in technology takes place.
Ethical Use of AI For Business Analysts
As AI adoption is growing ethical concerns are coming out prominently. Business Analysts play a crucial role in ensuring responsible AI use. By championing ethical AI, BAs help organizations avoid legal and reputational risks while working on different customer projects. Below are some ways:
- Identifying AI bias: Ensuring AI model’s biasness is not reflected in the solutions you propose to customers.
- Ensuring compliance: Understanding regulations like GDPR and AI governance frameworks.
Conclusion
AI is going to be new normal. To stay relevant, Business Analysts should master the AI skills. You should also look at the benefits AI offers in performing daily jobs, AI is a Productivity Amplifier, a Tool to assist in mundane tasks, it helps to deliver better solutions for your customers.
As organizations continue to use AI, Business Analysts who adapt and integrate AI into their skillset will be the key drivers of business success. Embrace AI and position yourself as a leader in the evolving field of business analysis. By learning AI skills, you are matching with the visions of your organization & software industry as whole which will future-Proof your career.
Ready to master the power of AI in your business analysis role? Explore our comprehensive AI Certification for Business Analysts course.
