Data is increasingly the differentiator between winners and also-rans in business. Today, information can be captured from many different sources, and technology to extract insights is becoming increasingly accessible.
The Top 5 Data Science And Analytics Trends In 2023
Adobe Stock
Moving to a data-driven business model – where decisions are made based on what we know to be true rather than “gut feeling” – is core to the wave of digital transformation sweeping through every industry in 2023 and beyond. It helps us to react with certainty in the face of uncertainty – especially when wars and pandemics upset the established order of things.
ADVERTISEMENT
But the world of data and analytics never stands still. New technologies are constantly emerging that offer faster and more accurate access to insights. And new trends emerge, bringing us new thinking on the best ways to put it to work across business and society at large. So, here’s my rundown of what I believe are the most important trends that will affect the way we use data and analytics to drive business growth in 2023.
Data Democratization
One of the most important trends will be the continued empowerment of entire workforces – rather than data engineers and data scientists – to put analytics to work. This is giving rise to new forms of augmented working, where tools, applications, and devices push intelligent insights into the hands of everybody in order to allow them to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently.
ADVERTISEMENT
In 2023, businesses will understand that data is the key to understanding customers, developing better products and services, and streamlining their internal operations to reduce costs and waste. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this won’t fully happen until the power to act on data-driven insights is available to frontline, shop floor, and non-technical staff, as well as functions such as marketing and finance.
Some great examples of data democracy in practice include lawyers using natural language processing (NLP) tools to scan pages of documents of case law, or retail sales assistants using hand terminals that can access customer purchase history in real time and recommend products to up-sell and cross-sell. Research by McKinsey has found that companies that make data accessible to their entire workforce are 40 times more likely to say analytics has a positive impact on revenue.
Artificial Intelligence
ADVERTISEMENT
Artificial intelligence (AI) is perhaps the one technology trend that will have the biggest impact on how we live, work and do business in the future. Its effect on business analytics will be to enable more accurate predictions, reduce the amount of time we spend on mundane and repetitive work like data gathering and data cleansing, and to empower workforces to act on data-driven insights, whatever their role and level of technical expertise (see Data Democratization, above).
Put simply; AI allows businesses to analyze data and draw out insights far more quickly than would ever be possible manually, using software algorithms that get better and better at their job as they are fed more data. This is the basic principle of machine learning (ML), which is the form of AI used in business today. AI and ML technologies include NLP, which enables computers to understand and communicate with us in human languages, computer vision which enables computers to understand and process visual information using cameras, just as we …….