The AI habits our data analysts are developing

Picture of Emilie Sanders Lee

Emilie Sanders Lee

EVP, Global Analytics and Media Operations

“What used to take hours now takes minutes.”

That’s how one teammate summed up the impact of AI on our analytics team. But here’s the twist: speed is just the beginning.

At Just Global, AI is sometimes about doing the same work faster. Let’s not deny it. But it’s also about changing the nature of the work itself. Reporting is becoming a strategy session, and sometimes even a relief valve for overworked teams. And in that shift, both our people and our clients are winning.

Becoming a Coding Wizard

When Mickey Huang started working with Python, he didn’t expect AI to become his co-pilot.

“AI has accelerated the ETL timeline from concept to application in my analytics workflow. As someone new to Python, it helps me turn ideas into action and sparks new ways to solve problems.”

Suddenly, you don’t need to be a coding veteran to test an idea or refine a dataset. AI combined with Python gives analysts, new or seasoned, the ability to move from “I wonder if…” to “Here’s what we know” in record time.

It reminds me of Ritesh Patel’s Formula 1 analogy What Do Formula 1 & Modern Marketing Have in Common?. The best car doesn’t win the race without a skilled driver. AI might give us horsepower, but it’s how we drive it that creates results.

Automation That Fuels Imagination

Charlie Cruz sees AI as a release valve:

“By streamlining repetitive or manual tasks, we’ve been able to shorten turnaround times significantly. That efficiency not only accelerates delivery but also gives us more bandwidth to focus on bigger projects that need more thought and attention.”

That’s the heart of it: automation isn’t about removing people. It’s about removing the drain from people. Imagine if your job no longer required formatting endless slides or reconciling messy spreadsheets. What would you do with that energy? Dream bigger? Build smarter? Push a risky idea?

Building Individual Resilience

Kat Van Biene, our local host of the podcast AI and the City, has seen the cultural shift up close:

“We’ve gone from manual reporting that eats up time to AI-powered tools that surface insights faster and more meaningfully. The biggest impact has been less burnout, more empowerment, and more room to grow.”

Here Kat emphasizes people.

Success in measurement is now about whether teams feel energized or depleted at the end of the day. AI has helped us measure what matters: clarity for clients, confidence for teams, and resilience across the business.

AI as a Sparring Partner

Will Mather describes AI less like a tool and more like a challenger in the ring:

“AI acts like a sparring partner, pushing us to dig deeper, refine our ideas, and deliver stronger, more impactful work. It challenges assumptions and surfaces questions we might not have thought to ask, leading to richer insights.”

This enables our analytics teams to sharpen their thoughts. Just as a sparring partner makes you quicker and stronger, AI forces us to test our logic, question our assumptions, and rethink what ‘insight’ means.

In his own article Leveraging AI and Analytics, Will calls out this dual role with a message worth repeating: AI is not here to think for us. It’s here to make us better thinkers.

The Power of Shared Ingenuity

One of the most exciting breakthroughs this year wasn’t flashy software. It was a shared Google Colab passion.

When our very own Raghav Mehra introduced our team to AI-powered Python scripts, something clicked. Suddenly, one person’s solution became everyone’s solution. The aha moments multiplied.

At Just Global we’re not chasing shiny AI toys. We’re building cultures of shared learning where every experiment scales across the team and every client benefits.

Why This Matters for Clients

So, what does this look like outside our walls? For clients, it means:

  • Sharper analysis: Insights delivered with less lag time and more precision.
  • Smarter questions: Reports that don’t just answer, but provoke.
  • Strategic focus: Teams spending more time on strategy and less on spreadsheets.
  • Sustainable pace: Analysts who aren’t burned out, but energized.

This connects directly to Craig Dempster’s challenge in Beyond a Trend: Navigating the AI Revolution in B2B. AI is more of a cultural upgrade. It changes not just what we deliver, but how we deliver it.

Question for you, reader: If AI took the grind out of your role, what bold project would you finally chase?

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