Analyzing Data With AI: From Spreadsheet to Insight
June 27, 2026 · 9 min read
AI is excellent at writing the analysis code and terrible at knowing whether the question makes sense.
Start with the question
Vague questions produce vague charts. Define the decision the analysis supports.
Ask for the code
Generated Python or SQL is auditable; a generated conclusion is not.
Check the joins
Most wrong answers come from duplicated rows, not from the model's reasoning.
Visual sanity checks
Plot distributions before trusting any summary statistic.