Raw Data with Rob Collie

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.

Pivot tables finally auto-refresh. Humanity wins, but our host Rob Collie is still annoyed. Why? Because he asked for it back in 2007 and got shot down. That little gripe kicks off a bigger conversation: what else in data is overdue for a shake-up? Copilot might be next. Forget filters. Forget dashboards. Rob put it to the test on his beer-league hockey stats and found himself asking questions faster than any report could keep up. It felt natural, almost too natural. Then came the twist. Copilot served up an answer that looked perfect… and was completely wrong. If it can fool the guy who built the model, what chance does anyone else have? Listen in for the laughs, the lessons, and the curveballs of a future where filters may finally be obsolete.

Every campaign has it: that shiny "more reach, lower cost" lever that looks like marketing gold but really just siphons your budget into digital quicksand. We pulled it. The metrics looked fantastic. And that's exactly how we knew we'd been had. In this episode, Rob breaks down a real-world lesson in false signals, phantom clicks, and why data discipline isn't just consultant-speak—it's your financial survival strategy. We're talking about the bots that sneak in through "partner sites," how they corrupt your retargeting, and the ripple effect that turns good data bad across your entire funnel. Here's the thing: The real damage isn't the wasted spend. It's what corrupted data does to your decision-making. When you're building your strategy on phantom signals, every "optimization" takes you further from real results. If you're protecting a budget or leading a team that depends on clean data to drive real business decisions, this episode cuts straight to what matters: spotting the traps before they drain your resources and rebuilding trust in the numbers that actually count.

AI is rewriting the rules of analytics. Copilot can pull answers straight from your semantic model and bypass the dashboard entirely. But for all the tech fireworks, the same old truth holds: communication is still the hardest part. Stakeholders don't always know what they want, builders don't always know how to translate it, and requirements docs have never fixed that gap. Copilot just puts the tension in sharper focus. Rob and Justin dig into why vanishing chat histories aren't just inconvenient, they erase the most honest record of what stakeholders actually care about. Screenshots and Word docs are a band-aid, not a solution. Persistent, shareable conversations could change the way model developers and business users collaborate, but only if governance and security evolve fast enough to keep up. Along the way, they show why usage data from Copilot queries is miles ahead of click stats on a dashboard and why the story of your data has always hinged on the same thing: people understanding each other. Dashboards may have set the stage, but conversation is where the real action is. Listen now and see what happens when the chat itself becomes the deliverable.

Two hundred episodes in, and we're done with the warm-up! Episode 200 finds Rob flying solo and pulling zero punches on the question everyone's quietly asking: what's the future of data work? No anniversary nostalgia here, just uncomfortable truths about AI bootcamps at Starbucks, semantic models going naked, and why being "pretty good" at anything is about to get very complicated. If you think you know where this is all headed, think again. Rob spent yesterday turning a non-techie real estate agent into an AI power user, and what he saw exceeded anything from the early Power BI days. But here's what nobody's talking about: the invisible barriers, the shifting skill requirements, and why the middle ground might be disappearing faster than anyone realizes. The lines between data work and software work are blurring, structured versus unstructured data is becoming meaningless, and the comfortable assumptions about who does what are about to get stress-tested. Two hundred episodes of calling it straight, and this one tackles the questions that keep data professionals up at night. Some answers might surprise you. Others might make you uncomfortable. [But you'll know exactly where you stand when the dust settles]

Most of us have been in the trenches long enough to know when something's about to flip the script. And brother, we're standing at the edge of a cliff most data folks don't even see coming. Rob Collie thought he had Power BI figured out. Then Copilot did something impossible; it cracked a question that should've left it scratching its digital head. But it didn't just answer. It nailed it. That's what we're calling the Dobie Moment—when AI stops being a fancy calculator and starts being genuinely scary-smart. Here's the thing nobody's talking about, your semantic models aren't just sitting there anymore. They're waking up. And when Rob and Justin break down what happened in this episode, you'll see exactly why that should make you sweat a little. They're not here to blow smoke. They'll show you the magic, sure, but more importantly, they'll show you where the landmines are buried. Because when AI starts connecting dots you didn't even know existed, confidence and correctness become two very different animals. Bottom line: The future of data just knocked on your door. You can pretend you didn't hear it, or you can listen to this episode and actually be ready when your models have their own moment of reckoning. Your call. But don't say we didn't warn you.