Raw Data with Rob Collie

Rob finally cracked his years long standoff with the podcast lair cat, and the fix was hilariously simple. That small victory ends up setting the tone for the whole episode, because everything that follows has the same energy: real problems that only make sense once you shrink the solution down. As Rob talks through the cat truce, Justin brings in a different kind of chaos. A customer service bot that sounded fully in command yet never actually did the thing it said it did. Pair that with a hiring queue full of AI written applications, and the whole picture starts to come into focus. Once you see the pattern, you can't unsee it. The wins only show up when the AI job gets small. The fantasy football tool works the moment AI stops trying to scrape the entire internet and instead only writes the human part. The hiring filter works when AI is there to catch repetitive patterns, not run the whole show. Even the experiments coming out of Danielson Labs click only because the AI calls are tiny and the real work sits in regular code. Everything points in the same direction. Let AI handle the one thing only AI can do, then let normal tech take it from there.

Everyone's talking about AI like it's plug-and-play. Spoiler: it's not. In this episode, Rob digs into why Big Tech's billions in AI R&D haven't yet turned into matching revenue — and what that means for the rest of us. The truth? The real business wins don't come from off-the-shelf models; they come from smart customization. Rob breaks down the "magic Lego brick" approach that separates hype from practical reality, showing how everyday tools like Power BI and Power Automate can connect to AI in surprisingly simple (and powerful) ways. He also revisits Bill Krolicki's "Vendor Bot" example to prove that you don't need to be a researcher or a billionaire to make AI deliver real results. If you've ever opened ChatGPT, asked it to "optimize operations," and gotten nowhere — this one's for you.

When the bubble pops, what's left standing? Everyone's calling AI a bubble — and yeah, there's some wild stuff happening behind the scenes. Billions changing hands between the same few tech giants. Investments that look more like circular loans than innovation. But what if the real bubble isn't AI at all? Rob breaks down what's really inflating, what's not, and why your business shouldn't lose sleep over it. The headlines may sound like the sky's falling, but the tools driving real results aren't going anywhere. Some bubbles burst. Others just float higher. Listen now to hear Rob's take on which kind this is and why the real value of AI doesn't care what the stock chart says.

Everyone's talking about AI. Almost no one's getting specific. And that's the problem. Rob and Justin break down the three categories that matter: chat agents you talk to, embedded assistants baked into your workflows, and headless systems running quietly in the background doing the grunt work nobody wants to do. This isn't theory. This is how AI is finally working for real companies. They walk through Vendor Bot, Scheduler Bot, and Budget Bot — small, focused tools that do one thing exceptionally well. Because here's what keeps happening: the "one bot to rule them all" projects collapse under their own weight every single time. But stack a few narrow, reliable bots together? That's when things get interesting. If you've been wondering why AI works for some teams and stalls for others, this episode has your answer. Spoiler: it's not about going bigger. It's about getting ruthlessly specific. The "we're all in on AI" era is over. The "we know where it fits" era just began. If you like the show, be sure to leave us a review or share it on your platform of choice.

AI without the committee: Most manufacturers are still holding meetings about AI. Bill Krolicki just built it. As CFO of Interpak, he didn't wait for a strategy deck or a vendor pilot—he wired Power BI and Power Automate into a self-running operation. His bots read supplier emails, catch late shipments before they blow up production, and update the ERP while everyone else is still asking who owns the spreadsheet. Rob Collie and Justin Mannhardt sit down with Bill to talk about what happens when finance stops waiting and starts building. From "Vendor Bot" to the soon-to-launch "Budget Bot," it's a front-row look at how AI turns from theory to throughput when a data person is actually in charge—no consultants, no six-month roadmaps, just results. If you've had your fill of AI hype and want to see what it looks like when someone actually ships something, this is your episode. And if you enjoyed it, leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform—it helps other no-BS practitioners find us.

Last week we got a facelift—new name, new look, same deep data dives. This week? We prove the rebrand wasn't just cosmetic. Rob kicks things off with a time machine moment: his first gig at Microsoft in the '90s, building the Windows Installer. The running joke back then? "Installing yesterday's apps tomorrow." Cut to 2025, and that exact same code shows up while he's configuring an AI tool for data modeling. Build something right, and it really sticks around. And that's the bridge, AI context management isn't some brave new world. It's the same discipline that made Power BI models and Copilot integrations actually useful. You don't need to burn it all down and start over. You just need to get specific enough to matter. If you've suffered through bloated "AI strategy" decks or watched a model confidently hallucinate through your business logic, this episode's for you. The fix isn't fancier AI—it's giving it structure, purpose, and the right context to work with. That's how you turn a show pony into a workhorse. Bottom line: AI isn't a revolution. It's a new faucet. And the people who know how to connect it—and what to feed it—are already leading the next wave of transformation.

AI isn't here to take your job—it's redefining your skill set, especially for data professionals. While big firms waste money on flashy but empty AI projects, smaller teams are quietly reaping the benefits by supplying the right data. Rob emphasizes the importance of harnessing existing skills and treating unstructured data as valuable. He argues that data experts are uniquely positioned to lead the AI revolution. This episode challenges listeners to embrace AI as their new playground and invites them to become the true cavalry in this tech landscape.

Nobody loves requirements docs. They're the corporate equivalent of writing a novel just so someone can skim the back cover. The real question is whether you can ditch all that and go straight from "here's what I need" to a working Power BI model. In this episode, Rob and Justin push AI into that role and see what breaks, what builds, and what actually saves you time. Turns out, the magic isn't in making AI look impressive on a demo slide. It's in whether it can wire up tables, relationships, and measures fast enough that your team can skip the plumbing and jump right to the good part: asking "does this answer the question?" instead of "why won't this table join?" That's the test, and it's the only one that matters. From tools that feel like friendly appliances to those that lean full hacker-mode, Rob and Justin run the gauntlet. They even crack open Copilot's inner workings to see how answers really get formed. It's a gritty look at whether AI can finally cut the "first-hour tax" every project pays and give leaders a faster path to value.

Large language models aren't magic. They're pivot tables for words. That's the real breakthrough — not a crystal ball, not a robot overlord, but a new way to roll up all the noise in your business into something you can actually use. And that's why AI belongs in the middle layer. Just like BI gave you visibility across systems, AI is becoming the connective tissue for all the unstructured stuff that never fit neatly in a database. Sure, every product is rushing to bolt on "AI features," but those sidebars and pop-ups can only see the data inside their own walls. The real power shows up when you wire AI across the mess — the emails, the docs, the meeting notes, the structured and unstructured side by side. That's where pivot-table-for-words meets pivot-table-for-numbers, and suddenly you're not staring at silos. You're staring at the whole picture. Rob and Justin cut past the hype to show why AI isn't the star of the show, it's the glue in the middle. And that's good news, because the middle is where business actually gets done. Hit play and hear why the future of AI is less wizardry, more wiring — and why that's exactly what makes it work.

This isn't another AI think-piece, it's a full-on data brawl. Copilot is out here plagiarizing Rob's pivot table crusade while the self-appointed nerd police try to lock down the definition of agentic AI. Meanwhile, thirty years of fantasy football become the unexpected proof that tuning beats buzzwords every single time. What starts as a slip from Copilot turns into a bigger story about how AI really works. Off-the-shelf tools can sound impressive, but they collapse into clichés when they're not tuned to the person using them. The difference isn't just in efficiency, it's in credibility. Get it right, and AI amplifies your voice. Get it wrong, and you sound like everyone else mailing it in. Don't settle for AI that sounds like everyone else. Listen in and hear what happens when tuned workflows collide with real-world stakes.