Session Abstract

Everyone’s talking about AI right now. Boards are pushing for it. Leaders are being told to move fast or risk falling behind. So projects start. Budgets get signed off. Expectations go up. But there’s something sitting underneath all of that that doesn’t get talked about enough. The data. Not because people don’t care about it… but because most of the time, they can’t actually see it. That’s the gap. The people making decisions about AI don’t have a clear view of the data those decisions depend on. And the people who do understand the data aren’t the ones setting direction. So AI moves forward… while the biggest risk stays hidden. And that risk is simple. Bad data can cost you millions. In some cases, a lot more. The blocker isn’t AI. It’s the data. And the problem isn’t just that the data has issues… it’s that those issues aren’t visible to the people making decisions. Bad data isn’t new. But with AI, the consequences are bigger than ever. AI needs strong foundations. Build on weak data, and you’re building on sand. It might look fine at first, but it won’t hold. This isn’t about adding AI as a feature. It’s about business survival. The organisations that get their data right will lead. The ones that don’t will fall behind. And this isn’t something you can afford to wait on. This is about decisions you’re making now, not six months from now after a proof of concept tells you what you could have seen earlier. Take a simple example. Your sales data shows 1,000 products sold. 999 at £1. One at £100. Looks fine. Except it isn’t real. Someone missed a decimal point. Now imagine building forecasts, pricing, or AI models on top of that. You’re not just slightly wrong… you’re confidently wrong. And AI will scale that mistake. In this session, we bring both sides together. The technical view and the business view. Because this problem sits right in the middle. Between us, we’ve seen this play out across organisations like Bank of America, the NHS, McDonald's, and UK policing. Different industries, same pattern. Data quality quietly shaping decisions at scale. What we focus on is making that visible. Using Microsoft Power BI, we bring together data from across your organisation. Finance spreadsheets, HR systems, platforms like Dynamics 365. One view of what’s really going on. From there, you can see it clearly. Where things don’t line up. Where risk sits. Where opportunity is being missed. We look at data quality, governance, platform maturity, and operational risk, but more importantly, what those things actually mean for the business. A key part of this is exposing what’s usually hidden. Simple techniques like spotting outliers and inconsistencies quickly bring problems to the surface. The kind that would otherwise stay buried, but have a real impact on AI outcomes. This takes AI readiness out of a dark room and puts it in front of the people making decisions. Clear. Visual. Hard to ignore. So instead of guessing, leadership can see where the organisation really stands, what needs to improve, and when it actually makes sense to invest in AI. Power BI isn’t the focus. Getting your data into the right shape is. Power BI is simply the most effective way to make that visible, understandable, and something you can act on straight away. If your data is ready, you move forward with confidence. If it isn’t, you leave with something just as valuable. A clear roadmap of what’s in the way, and what to fix first. Because AI doesn’t fail because the models are bad. It fails because the data is.

Note to event organizers

This is a 2 person session with Franco Musso

Duncan Boyne

I’m a Power BI and Power Platform consultant with a background in turning messy, real-world data into something people actually want to use. I spend most of my time working with Power BI, Dataverse, Power Apps, and Power Automate, helping organisations move from “we have data” to “we trust our data”. I’m particularly interested in report design, semantic models, governance, and making complex concepts feel simple. Outside of client work, I’m heavily involved in the Power Platform community. I run the Norfolk Power Platform User Group, help organise regional events, and regularly speak at user groups and conferences across the UK. My sessions are practical, honest, and based on lessons learned the hard way, with a focus on things you can apply the next day.

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