18/08/2026
Last night, our Principal Consultant, Simon Stewart, had the opportunity to present at DAMA South Africa on a topic that is becoming increasingly relevant as AI continues to reshape the way we work with data.
“Goodbye Dashboards, Hello Dialogue.”
For years, dashboards have been at the heart of business analytics, giving us a structured view of what has happened and, increasingly, what is happening now.
But what if the next evolution of analytics isn't another dashboard? What if, instead of searching through reports and clicking through filters, we could simply ask questions, explore insights and have a conversation with our data?
Simon explored how conversational AI and agent-driven interfaces are changing the way organisations interact with information, while also addressing an important reality: better interfaces don't automatically mean better answers.
Curated and trusted data, semantic models, consistent business definitions, provenance, evidence, monitoring, governance and human oversight are all still critical if AI is going to move beyond experimentation and become something businesses can genuinely trust.
The discussion also touched on some fascinating questions around the future of Excel, self-service analytics, low-code and “vibe coding”, deterministic vs. probabilistic answers, AI governance, and how organisations can balance rapid experimentation with accountability.
A big thank you to DAMA South Africa, Howard Diesel, Simon and everyone who participated in the discussion for creating a space where these conversations can happen.
