The Data Stack Show - The PRQL: Can You Trust AI Enabled Analytics?

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Cindi Howson of ThoughtSpot and Host of The Data Chief Podcast.

Welcome to the Data Sacks show prequel, where we talk about the episode that we just recorded to give you a little teaser. This was a fascinating conversation, Kostas. I think there were two things that stuck out. One, I got to satisfy my curiosity about sort of AI-enabled analytics, which is what we talked about. The whole episode is about analytics. Cindy from ThoughtSpot is an analytics expert with over two decades of experience in the space. And she had such interesting things to say about how AI is actually being implemented and then even adopted in the analytics space. And the teaser there is that I ignore all of that in the analytics tools that I use because I'm skeptical of what they're telling me, which maybe says more about me than the analytics tools. But she had a really interesting perspective on that. The second thing we talked about and would love your thoughts on are the

changing roles in the organization as they relate to analytics. So what was one big takeaway from the episode that you think our listeners would really appreciate on the roles related to analytics? Yeah, I think, I mean, for me, it was probably like the most insightful part of our conversation. And it's probably, I mean, it's really, really hard to find people to talk about that stuff. Like Cindy really is like, let's say an expert in this because she understands very well the transformation process that the companies need to go through in order to adopt these technologies and become like more data-driven or informed or whatever you want to call it. What I keep like from the conversation that we had is how actually roles do not get obsolete, but they get transformed. That's like, I think from, let's say anyone who is like a professional

in this space and they're wondering about like what their career path is going to look like in five or 10 years from now. I think that's what they... It's the most important thing that came out from this conversation. But you have also, as you evangelize that you are an agent of change for the company and you get into the company to help you change and become data-driven, this kind of culture also needs to be part of yourself, right? And you are going to change like what an analyst was like five years ago and what the analyst is

going to do like in five years from now probably are going to be like completely different. And listening to people like Cindy, I think it's like a very good way to prepare ourselves and get like some very needed stimulation to drive our thought process around like what we want to do next, what we want to learn next, and how we should evolve as professionals. Sure. Or even for team leaders, how they want to evolve and build their team or their team structure. And I think that's a great point for anyone, even if we talked about analytics, that we also delved into roles that are contiguous to analytics in the form of data engineering, data science, et cetera. And so I think for anyone in an organization that's trying to use analytics to become data

driven, it's just really, really helpful context for how some of the most forward-thinking companies are structuring that. So definitely check this one out. Really, really good episode, and we will catch you in the next one.