Our data landscape is changing, as it always has and always will do. But this change is bigger. We’re going from being able to explore through paths to exploring through simple language.
This doesn’t mean the end of reports and dashboards though.
The car dashboard
Your car has a dashboard on it and while it’s not something we think of as data consumption, that is exactly what it is. I don’t want to have to ask my car every time I want to know what speed I’m doing. I want to be able to look at the same spot every time and know my speed in a fraction of a second.
Carrying on with this car metaphor, there are settings and data points in my car’s system that take me sometimes minutes to find. Those are the instances when I want to be able to speak to my car and say “recalibrate my tyre pressures” and it does it without 5 correct clicks.
Self service analytics
Sometimes we need a deep dive into something because of a change in the business we hadn’t predicted. We still need clear thinking and precision, but we no longer need to understand how to use a different tool.
So what’s the answer?
Reports and dashboards aren’t going anywhere in my opinion. We have a new way of getting to data but that doesn’t mean that the existing ways don’t still add value.
But the importance of the semantic model becomes even more critical in this world. And the question of how we save what we create matters more than ever.
Part of my MCP Servers for Conversational BI talk.