The Data Analyst role has been declared dead more times than we can count. Initially, analysts served as liaisons between the business and IT teams that owned Data Warehouses, at times acting more like Business Analysts. Metric definitions can be generated and refined automatically, with AI acting as a coach to sharpen them against the actual business need. That’s the shift: not fewer analysts, but analysts spending their time on the work that moves the needle. The ROI of AI in analytics isn't necessarily fewer analysts; it's analysts who actually drive the right decisions.