AI and the Business Analysis Role

This article is a write up of the session delivered by Pete Thompson and Kitty Hung at the June 2024 BA Manager Forum.?

Artificial Intelligence has been around since the 1950s but is now a hotter topic than ever. So what does this mean for the BA role, moving forwards? How can BA’s make the best professional use of AI? What are the challenges to the BA role? And could AI become a technical stakeholder, providing solutions to wider business problems??

What is AI??

Who better to answer that question than AI itself, in this case Google Gemini:?

AGI is Artificial General Intelligence – where someone talks to a singularity. Some think that AI could eventually supersede humans, others are sceptical that this could ever happen. ?

In ‘Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans’, Melanie Mitchell considers the disparate ‘narrow AI’ applications such as speech recognition, playing chess and autonomous driving and cites this quote from a paper ‘What is Artificial Intelligence?’ (1)?

“A pile of narrow intelligences will never add up to general intelligence. General intelligence isn’t about the number of abilities, but about the integration between these abilities.”?

AI has Risks??

We have been using AI more extensively recently and it has developed significantly. However, AI does not always get things right. As reported in the Deep View newsletter on AI developments, a recent user of Google’s new 'AI Overview’ feature asked for a solution to “cheese not sticking to pizza.” The AI answered: “You can also add about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness”! The AI took this idea directly from a ‘tongue in cheek’ post which was 11 years old. The AI, of course, did not recognise the sarcasm. ?

More seriously, in another case a DPD error caused a Chatbot to swear at a customer. As a BA Leader you need to know the pitfalls of generative AI and consider the limitations. In this case there was no filtering of the LLM (Large Language Model), and many steps not taken. ?

Be Better BAs with Generative AI Tools?

We now have new generation ChatGPT. There is no in-job training for BAs in using LLMs. However, there are considerable benefits. It can result in a reduction in the time it takes to produce BA outputs so can free the BA up to focus on other things, such as managing a team or simply having a better work-life balance. ?

If AI can do the automation, we have to remember that AI can also tell you convincing lies, so as BAs we have to exercise our human oversight and common sense. This is a new opportunity for us as BAs to get optimal outcome from the AI, so we need to master the ‘prompt engineering’ technique – the capability to get the most out the AI for the best outcome, to ask the right questions. ?

There is an opportunity for BAs to develop our thought leadership, our innovative thinking, we can move our career ladder to become more strategic, to become the business adviser or critical friend of the business leaders, on performance, competitiveness and effectiveness.??

Machine Intelligence vs. Human Intelligence?

We trust the output of our calculators, and with Artificial Intelligence there will be more consistency in applying rules and logic. As there is no emotion or distraction there is a higher % of accuracy.??

AI can access enormous amounts of data and process it in short periods of time. It does not sleep, need annual leave, or sick leave or free evenings. It is multi-lingual, machine intelligence can translate over 100 languages simultaneously. Imagine if you work in a global organisation with colleagues all over the world and you need to collect data from IT systems in different languages all over the world. The AI will translate and present the output in your preferred language. And AI can do this in real time. ?

We must, however, remember that AI is a tool and not our master. We possess qualities AI does not have yet. People talk about AI one day having consciousness and emotion, but the current generation is based on algorithms and data sets. There is much in our consciousness, personal experience, commonsense, flexibility and even gut instincts that AI does not have. We can create ideas from nothing and art and music by ‘thinking out of the box’. Ethics, morality and that elusive inspiration are all human qualities.?

Artificial Intelligence does not have these qualities, and it will do immoral things if asked as it cannot tell right from wrong and legal from illegal. Humans have empathy and critical thinking. If a stakeholder seems sad, the BA might ask how they are, perhaps their dog died. If the same stakeholder spoke to AI, the AI would not understand their state of mind. We as humans can look after other humans. We have the curiosity to go into unchartered territory to drive innovation.?

Opportunities presented by AI?

Delegates at the BA Manager Forum came up with the following opportunities they think AI presents for their team and wider organisation:?

The key theme of AI saving time and taking on this repetitive task work is allowing BAs to increase their engagement with stakeholders, ask the important questions and have more helpful discussions.??

BAs Need to Become Competent Prompt Engineers??

Generative AI saves time on manually creating and translating requirements, generating documentation and notation. Now, because of the language capability, the AI can go further, it can become the programmer and can create working software. We need to transition in our organisations and use AI to boost our productivity. We are now in a semi-automated phase. AI is getting better and better.??

BA leaders are responsible for staff, quality, competence, and knowledge. Also, for answering questions from budget and finance people and from senior leadership. As a BA leader you need to make sure your BA team can use ChatGPT. They need to understand the principles and they need to be AI literate. They need to be motivated to use AI intelligently, not with their eyes closed. AI can ‘hallucinate’ content and tell convincing lies. We need the human oversight to supervise the output. BAs need to train to become good prompt engineers.?

BAs can use the time freed up by AI to focus on their soft skills and emotional intelligence, and to become excellent strategic advisers. They can ask questions such as: “Will this project help the organisation to improve competitiveness and profitability and create more value and make an impact?”?

Threats and Challenges to the BA Role from AI?

Delegates at the BA Manager Forum came up with the following threats and challenges they think AI presents for the BA role:?

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AI as a Solution to Wider Business Problems?

In organisations such as the BBC, BAs are using AI to beneficial effect and taking more ownership for AI solutions. The BBC want to keep their reputation, but to keep their audience they must produce quality programmes to attract young people – faster, better, and without spending more money. So, they are making use of generative AI. ?

At Heathrow airport customers using the website can talk to a Chatbot. There is more interactive signposting and question answering at the airport provided by AI.??

AI can solve business problems through many means, such as extracting metadata and data mining. It can extrapolate information from social media and find out what people are talking about and what their concerns are. It can embed a language model in a product. Generative AI products are improving all the time.??

What Actions can we Take to be Prepared for AI??

Delegates at the BA Manager Forum came up with the following actions they think BAs should take to be prepared for AI:?

In Summary?

In the AssistKD BA Brew on AI (Episode 62 – worth a watch), the ChatGPT host was asked the following question: “Do you think a Business Analyst needs to be human?” The answer was “Yes”.??

AI brings many opportunities to organisations and the BA role. There are threats and challenges along the way, however, BAs and AI can work together, as BAs can focus on what humans do best and perform tasks which AI has not mastered.??

However, there needs to be a re-evaluation of the BA role to make use of the potential of AI. AI literacy, AI ethics, data quality, governance and cybersecurity are all major issues to be addressed. It will be interesting to see where we are in 12 months’ time.?

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1. M. Loukides and B.Lorica,’What Is Artificial Intelligence?’, O’Reilly, June 20, 2016. www.oreilly.com/ideas/what-is-artificial-intelligence ?

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Pete Thompson is Learning Services Director at AssistKD. He has three decades experience as an information systems consultant, BA trainer and BA apprenticeship mentor and is a BCS examiner and leadership panel member. Pete is the author of the upcoming BCS book: Digital Solutions: from inception to delivery?

Dr Kitty Hung has three decades experience as a Business Analyst and Consultant. She is the author of Business Analysis in the Era of Artificial Intelligence.?

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