As organizations accelerate AI adoption, the role of analytics teams is evolving beyond reporting and dashboard creation. The real opportunity lies in empowering business users with self-service capabilities while ensuring trust, governance, and decision quality remain intact.

In Part 2 of this CDO Magazine interview series, Ashutosh Katiyar, former Executive Director, Commercial Strategy, Insights & Analytics at Regeneron, joins Subrato Chatterjee, Global Growth Partner for Life Sciences at Tiger Analytics, to discuss the future of self-serve analytics and the changing role of analysts in an AI-driven enterprise.

Katiyar explains why self-serve analytics is essential for shifting teams away from answering routine questions and toward enabling strategic decision-making. The conversation explores how natural language querying and generative AI are transforming access to information, while also creating new requirements around trust, explainability, and governance.

Key discussion points include:

• From information access to strategic partnership: Analytics professionals create greater value when focused on decision frameworks, business context, and scenario planning.
• Trust as the foundation of AI adoption: Explainability, semantic layers, and governance guardrails are critical to ensuring users make confident decisions from AI-generated insights.
• Driving organizational adoption: Embedding analytics directly into existing workflows increases utilization and reduces resistance to change.
• Balancing autonomy with governance: Centralized standards and access controls can coexist with business-unit flexibility and customization.

Katiyar also shares perspectives on why AI is not replacing analysts but redefining their responsibilities as validators, advisors, and strategic partners.

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