Explicit Measures Podcast

Mike & Tommy dive into why choosing the right AI model is one of the most consequential decisions a Power BI or Fabric team can make—and why most teams aren't making it deliberately at all. They explore the tension between cost, capability, and governance: when a frontier model is worth it, when a cheaper one is more than enough, and why letting a model review its own DAX is a governance risk hiding in plain sight.

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Mike & Tommy are joined one last time by Kurt Buhler as they dive into the agentic development of Power BI reports, wrestling with why generating a governed dashboard is so much harder than spinning up a web app or 3D model, and whether that friction is a platform problem, a data problem, or a skills problem.

They tackle the biggest misconceptions teams have when pitching agentic BI internally, debate whether dashboards are head...

Mike & Tommy are joined again by Kurt Buhler to tackle whether calling yourself a "Power BI person" is quietly capping your career in the age of AI, exploring how an AI-powered workflow expands your lens beyond a single tool to the full BI and application space, and why that shift should feel like liberation, not a threat.

They dig into who gets empowered versus who feels replaced, and what it really means to add value when AI i...

Mike & Tommy are joined again by Kurt Buhler and tackle the intersection of data literacy and AI literacy, exploring how self-awareness — or the lack of it — shapes the way teams build and consume Power BI and Microsoft Fabric solutions.

They dig into whether AI raises the floor while lowering the ceiling, why poor data literacy can become more dangerous in an AI-assisted world, and how to keep critical, creative, an...

Mike & Tommy are joined by Kurt Buhler as they dive into Fabric Apps and where they actually fit in the Power BI world, weighing whether they replace traditional reports, who owns them in a real org, and whether low code is getting cornered by AI agents.

They break down the pre-requirements for success, the unlocks Fabric Apps offer that reports never will, and why ambition, visual literacy, and planning friction matter more tha...

Mike & Tommy tackle the Fabric handoff — exploring what it really takes to transition a Microsoft Fabric environment to an organization with no prior Fabric experience, and whether the real challenge is the platform or the change management behind it.

They break down who needs to own Fabric after the consultants leave, what breaks first when a Power BI shop inherits a tenant they didn't build, and how to set a new team up ...

Mike & Tommy dive into how AI is actually changing data visualization work, exploring whether the real unlock is iteration speed rather than AI-built visuals, and why the "no enterprise license required" reality matters more than keynote promises.

They tackle the governance risk of analysts using personal AI tools with real data, debate the conversational analyst vs. architect analyst divide, and land on practical habits Power B...

Mike & Tommy break down the latest upgrades to Fabric Data Agents—MCP integration, OneLake Catalog discovery, multi-agent support, and Foundry Observability—and explore whether these changes finally move Data Agents from demo to production-ready.

They weigh in on the real tension: whether easier connectivity creates governance sprawl, how "one agent per domain" reshapes the one-version-of-truth debate, and what BI te...

Mike & Tommy dive into Liquid Clustering in Microsoft Fabric, breaking down why Runtime 2.0 changes it from an experimental feature into the default table layout strategy for Lakehouse workloads.

They explore how incremental clustering solves the write amplification problems that plagued Runtime 1.3, why file skipping matters for Direct Lake and Power BI report performance, and how teams should think about choosing clustering co...

Mike & Tommy dive into whether medallion architecture has truly evolved in the Fabric era or whether teams are just re-labeling Bronze, Silver, and Gold with new icons, using this Microsoft Fabric community article as a jumping-off point.

They break down when an all-in-one Warehouse pattern makes sense versus a hybrid Lakehouse approach, and walk away with a practical take on how much Spark you actually need before complicating ...

Mike & Tommy dive into what data visualization can teach us about critically evaluating LLMs, exploring why fluent, polished AI output can be just as misleading as a beautiful but inaccurate chart. They break down the tension between AI speed and data quality, tackling how BI teams can build a practical framework around accuracy, security, and sovereignty to use these tools without lowering their standards.

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Mike & Tommy dive into Power BI Desktop Bridge, breaking down what it actually solves, where it fits in your stack alongside Desktop, Service, Fabric, Git, and deployment pipelines, and what it really takes to make it run like a Ferrari for your team.

They tackle the hard questions — whether Desktop Bridge exposes weak development habits faster than it fixes them, how to keep speed from turning into chaos, and what governa...

Mike & Tommy dive into anonymous data access in Fabric Apps, exploring how the new capability lets builders deliver public-facing BI experiences without requiring users to sign in — and whether that's a governance breakthrough or a disaster waiting to happen.

They break down which items support it, what tenant admins need to know, and how Rayfin fits into the story of Fabric becoming a true application platform.

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Mike & Tommy dive into the emerging pattern of Fabric as a Backend (FaaB), exploring whether Fabric is becoming the default way teams think about their entire data ecosystem or just a front-facing adoption tool.

They weigh in on whether this pattern is a natural evolution of the platform or a case of forcing an analytics engine into an operational role — and what guardrails teams need before going all in.

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Mike & Tommy dive into what agentic development actually means for Power BI teams, breaking down the crawl, walk, run framework for safely adopting AI agents across BI assets. They explore why the shift goes far beyond Copilot prompts, how semantic models become the center of the conversation, and whether most orgs are ready to trust agents with DAX, RLS, and report generation. Tune in for a practical roadmap on where to start,...

Mike & Tommy dive into the Power BI Desktop Bridge preview, exploring how this new local API surface lets external tools and AI agents interact directly with a running Desktop session — and whether that changes report authoring forever.

They break down the Report Authoring Skill showcase, weigh in on the governance risks of agent-driven edits outside of source control, and discuss what experienced teams should actually tes...

Mike & Tommy tackle the hub-and-spoke composite model pattern, weighing in on whether splitting a bloated golden semantic model into a core hub with department-specific spokes delivers real simplification or just trades one problem for another. Prompted by Austin's question about avoiding a 100+ table behemoth, they break down what belongs in the hub, where DirectQuery connections start to hurt, and what governance guardrails t...

Mike & Tommy dive into the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI, breaking down what Microsoft's 19th consecutive Leader recognition actually means in an era where every vendor claims to be AI-first. They explore whether the real story is Power BI, Fabric, or the broader Microsoft ecosystem, and tackle the central tension of whether AI is making BI more powerful or just more confusing. Tune in for a practical take on...

Mike & Tommy tackle a question every data team manager is wrestling with: should junior staff learn DAX fundamentals before touching agentic AI tools, or can they dive straight in? Drawing from a listener in the insurance industry who manages a data team, they explore the tension between building real technical depth and embracing AI-assisted efficiency, and whether letting juniors "vibe DAX" creates dangerous blind spots or a ...