Summary
Dave Fowler, founder of Chartio and creator of DBT Charts, shares insights into his journey in the data visualization space and the evolution of analytics tools. After launching Chartio in 2010, which aimed to simplify dashboard creation for users, Fowler sold the company to Atlassian, where it became Atlassian Analytics. He reflects on the challenges of building effective data tools and the need for user-friendly interfaces that allow for both human oversight and AI integration.
Fowler discusses the potential of DBT Charts, which he describes as the "markdown of dashboards," emphasizing the importance of creating auditable and readable specifications for AI-generated visualizations. He believes that as AI continues to evolve, the traditional BI bottleneck—where business intelligence tools require pre-joined data sets—can be alleviated by enabling more relational data models that allow for real-time analytics. This shift could transform how organizations approach data visualization and decision-making, moving away from static dashboards to more dynamic, AI-driven insights.
The conversation also touches on the future of data apps and the need for tools that facilitate collaboration between AI and users. Fowler envisions a landscape where dashboards are not just static artifacts but interactive platforms that can be easily modified and updated based on user needs. As organizations increasingly rely on AI for data analysis, the ability to create and manage these visualizations efficiently will be crucial for maintaining a competitive edge in the data-driven world.
Show Notes
There are two common ways to get AI to make a chart today: ask a BI tool, or accept a pile of generated code that no one can read. Neither gives a data team much to review, test, or govern. In this episode of The Analytics Engineering Podcast, Tristan talks with Dave Fowler, founder of Chartio and the creator of dbt Charts. Dave started Chartio back in 2010 and sold it to Atlassian. Now he's back, building what he calls "the Markdown of dashboards": a human-readable spec that AI can write and people can review. They discuss why AI-generated charts need to be auditable. They dig into the BI bottleneck, including Dave's take that AI could make dimensional modeling less necessary. And they explore where dashboards go when agents start spinning them up on demand. You can check out dbt Charts at dbtcharts.com. The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by Fivetran + dbt Labs. Discover why more than 80,000 data teams use dbt to accelerate their data development.
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