Why Data Literacy Skills Still Matter with Augmented Analytics

Augmented analytics promises to bring BI to a much larger audience of business users.  Early implementations could prove useful in answering simple questions, like how much inventory an organization should plan to stock.  However, a higher level of data literacy skills is still required for more complex types of analysis.

For example, when Gartner invited vendors to apply their augmented analytics tools against a sample data set at a BI Bake Off in 2016, only one — Salesforce Einstein — allowed business users to accurately identify the root driver.  In this example, the tools were presented with a data set relating to college students to determine what factors lead to higher long-term earnings.  Most of the tools simply reinforced the inaccurate bias that earnings were correlated with Ivy League colleges, with the main driver as parents’ income.

Augmented analytics greatly reduces the need for data literacy in order to extract insights.  It does not obviate the need for learning how analytics can be misleading.

Read the full article “Why Data Literacy Skills Still Matter with Augmented Analytics” on TechTarget, which features Ryohei Fujimaki, dotData CEO and founder.