Augmented Analytics and Decision Quality: The Role of Trust among Non-Technical BI Users
For non-technical BI users and organizations deploying augmented analytics, this paper highlights the critical role of trust in improving decision quality, addressing a gap in BI adoption research.
This study examines how augmented analytics capabilities affect decision quality among non-technical BI users, finding that trust, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness mediate the relationship, with trust directly improving decision quality.
Augmented analytics has transformed how business intelligence (BI) systems support managerial decision-making. This is especially true for users without technical backgrounds, who increasingly rely on automated insights rather than manual analysis. BI research has previously concentrated on system adoption and user intention, with very little research examining the impact of AI-enabled analytics on decision quality and the cognitive mechanisms in between. Using the theory of cognitive delegation, this paper investigates the role of trust in augmented analytics and decision-making quality among non-technical BI users. 250 business professionals completed the survey, and the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show that augmented analytics capabilities lead to a significant increase in perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and trust in BI systems. In addition, trust and usefulness influence BI adoption and improve decision quality. Furthermore, trust has a direct and positive impact on decision quality, highlighting its importance as an enabler of reliance on AI-generated insights. This study considers augmented analytics as a form of cognitive delegation and expands the scope of BI adoption research to include decision-making outcomes.