AI Making Data Analyst Job More Strategic, Alteryx Says

AI isn’t replacing the position of the data analyst, as some had feared, but it is making the data analyst’s job more strategic, according to new research from Alteryx.

Instead of being looked upon as mere data mungers or spreadsheet jockeys, the data analyst’s role is being elevated to that of important decision-maker, according to Alteryx’s 2025 State of Data Analysts in the Age of AI report.

Alteryx’s report, released today, says 87% of data analysts say their role has become more strategic for their organizations over the past year. What’s more, 94% of the analysts say that AI is enhancing the strategic nature of their work.

“Upper management increasingly relies on my insights for making decisions related to product launches, price strategies and resource allocations, as data-backed strategies have reduced the risks,” one senior data analyst for a consumer goods company told Alteryx, according to the report, which you can download here.

Source: State of Data Analysts in the Age of AI report

The report says 85% of analysts claim they can “adapt faster to shifting project scopes compared to a year ago,” with 95% attributing that increase to AI. The report found 86% of analysts say AI has reshaped their responsibilities, with 43% saying the change is “profound.”

“AI has transformed my role from being seen as primarily technical to being recognized as somewhat central to strategy and decision making,” said a data scientist from Singapore.

AI is making it easier to combine data sets, according to 79% of the analysts in Alteryx’s survive, while 70% say AI and analytics automation make them more effective and efficient.  Naturally, all this AI-driven automation has led to greater happiness, with 86% saying AI has improved their job satisfaction, Alteryx says.

Looking for job security? Then learning AI skills is a good way to achieve it, according to the report, which found that 90% of analysts linked learning AI to career growth. Nearly half of survey-takers say mastering AI technology had a “significant impact on their own advancement.”

This year, only 17% of data analysts surveyed express concern over AI replacing their jobs. That’s a 180 degree turn from a year ago, when 65% said they expected AI to take data analyst jobs over the next two to three years.

It wasn’t all puppies and unicorns, however. Data complexity was the top concern, reported by 51% of analysts, followed by data quality at 46% and privacy and security at 44%. The typical data analyst still spends 10 to 11 hours per week collecting and preparing data for analysis, Alteryx says. Much of that data munging work is still done in a spreadsheet, which 76% of data analysts report as their main tool for the task, according to the report.

You can download the report here

The data analyst role is a critical one for organizations looking to leverage data, even as the role itself is changing due to AI, says Jay Henderson, SVP of Product at Alteryx.

“Leveraging AI as an everyday tool has boosted job satisfaction and reclaimed valuable hours for analysts. For organizations, the challenge is to optimize these productivity gains. This involves building a tech stack to manage advanced AI applications effectively. Plans to implement AI across workforces must go hand [in] hand with providing data workers the tools that consistently validate confidence in AI outputs. A strong starting point is determining whether your data preparation capabilities can meet these shifting demands.”

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