Speed Up Your Data Analysis with ChatGPT
If you spend any amount of time working with information, such as addresses or sales numbers, you’ll know that this information isn’t always perfectly neat. You might find typos, missing pieces, or different ways of writing the same thing. Fixing these problems by hand is time-consuming and tedious, keeping you from the real value: using the data to make smart choices or display it in visual, easy to learn from ways.
Imagine having a helper that quickly sorts through messy data, finds mistakes, and puts everything in order. This helper can even turn your rough ideas into organized lists. That’s where tools like ChatGPT or other AIs come in. While most of the attention is on using it to answer questions or generate content, it’s also surprisingly good at getting your data ready to use.
In this article, we’ll show you how to use ChatGPT to clean up your data, gather new information, and prepare it for mapping tools like BatchGeo—with a step-by-step example to walk you through the process. We’ll do this all in the free tier of ChatGPT or the free tier of Google Gemini.
Let’s start with a classic question:
What do people across the US call a carbonated sweetened beverage?
Gathering Data
Even if you have spreadsheets upon spreadsheets cluttering up your hard drive, we’re starting fresh for this example with a question and we’re going to ask ChatGPT for the answer.
Unlike typical web searches that provide lists of links, you’ll get a complete answer. Plus, you can ask your question in plain English (or your language of choice!) to get the details you need.
After you enter your prompt, you’ll start getting results and you can narrow them down from there.
In this case, the example was fairly straightforward, so one question got us what we needed. Make sure to always verify the information given and don’t just take AI at its word. AIs like ChatGPT have been known to hallucinate answers that don’t exist, so always double check anything it gives you.
Interactive Maps Made Easy
Sign Up NowNow that we have our answer, we’ll ask ChatGPT to provide a CSV with the data in it.
Data Cleanup & Formatting
Our data here is fairly straightforward, so there isn’t a lot of cleanup needed. However, cleanup is one of the more valuable ways to use a tool like ChatGPT. You can feed a spreadsheet into it and have it remove spaces, split data into columns, fill in placeholder data for missing areas, normalize information, and so much more.
In this case, I’m going to ask ChatGPT to change my state names to their abbreviations. You can upload a CSV to ChatGPT and then ask it to make changes. No more needing to remember the exact menu options in Excel or Google Sheets, you can simply ask this tool to make the changes for you.
This was a very straightforward example. But what do you do if you need something more complex?
Let’s take a look at data for events that happened in 1926. Ask ChatGPT (or another tool!) to give you the tables, counts, or analysis that you’re looking for. In this case, we asked Gemini for pivot tables and counts of events as the free tier of ChatGPT wasn’t able to provide them.
Now that the data’s in your preferred format, download the CSV, look it over, and make sure everything is as you were expecting. From there, you’re ready to map it!
Mapping with BatchGeo
For this example map, we’ll use the new BatchGeo Boundary Map.
Upload your CSV to BatchGeo and select Set Options.
Choose your various options, set your marker colors and select Make Map. In the choice that comes up, choose Boundary Map.
From there Save and Continue, name your map, and publish! It’s really that easy.
Check out our map:
View Soda, Pop, Or Coke? in a full screen map
Other Tips
Here are a few more ways to speed up your data tasks with AI tools like ChatGPT:
- Ask for formulas: Need a specific Excel or Sheets formula but can’t remember the syntax? Ask ChatGPT. You can describe what you’re trying to do in plain language and get the exact formula you need.
- Summarize large datasets: If you’re working with lots of data, upload a sample and ask ChatGPT to summarize key points, find trends, or even identify outliers. It can save hours of scrolling and sorting.
- Explain confusing data: Not sure what a column in your dataset means? Ask ChatGPT to explain it. If it’s from a public source or follows common formats, it may recognize it and give you helpful context.
- Reformat on demand: Need dates in a different format? Want all text lowercase? Ask ChatGPT to reformat the data your way, without hunting through menu options.
- Generate sample data: If you’re building dashboards or testing tools, ChatGPT can create realistic-looking sample data to use while you’re building things out.
- Automate repetitive tasks: If you often clean data the same way (e.g., trimming spaces, combining columns), save your prompt and reuse it as a mini script anytime you need it.
- Double-check AI work: AI speeds up your process, but it’s not perfect. Make a habit of giving your data a quick look afterward. Remember, AI hallucinates and you want to be sure that the data you’re using is truly accurate.
Create Your Own Map
Do you have your own data waiting in a spreadsheet begging to be talked about? Or maybe you’ve gathered it from ChatGPT and you want to show it off. Perhaps some customer addresses, business locations, or a list of deliveries? Maps can help tell the story of that data in a visual way that will enthrall your viewers.
BatchGeo is your fastest way to make a custom map. You’ve just read how easy it is, so try it today for free!
