Explicit Measures Podcast

Mike & Tommy dive into Databricks Genie and the growing hype around data agents, exploring whether the real challenge is natural language chat or the semantic layer underneath—and what Power BI teams must fix before any AI agent can deliver trusted, governed answers at scale.

https://www.advancinganalytics.co.uk/blog/genie-is-a-semantic-layer-problem-not-a-chat-problem-1

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Updates-Blogs/OneLake-catalog-is-now-natively-available-in-Foundry-Generally/ba-p/5178376

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Updates-Blogs/Direct-Lake-on-SQL-with-Fabric-Data-Warehouse/ba-p/5177641

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Power-BI-Updates-Blog/Modern-Visual-Tooltips-in-Power-BI-Generally-Available/ba-p/5173946

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Mike & Tommy weigh in on whether bookmarks in Power BI are still worth the maintenance burden, exploring how field parameters, slicers, and modern features have changed the game, and when you should still reach for bookmarks versus simplifying your data model instead.

https://tabulareditor.com/blog/ai-readiness-and-best-practices-for-semantic-models-a-comprehensive-guide

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Updates-Blogs/OneLake-catalog-is-now-natively-available-in-Foundry-Generally/ba-p/5178376

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Mike & Tommy dive into Building Agentic Tools for Microsoft Fabric With Alex Powers, exploring Microsoft's Alex Powers' new tool 'Taskflow Assistant' for Microsoft Fabric and how AI is transforming the way professionals work with Fabric workflows, discussing whether we're helping users master the platform or avoid learning it altogether.

https://github.com/microsoft/fabric-task-flows

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Updates-Blogs/Discover-items-across-workspaces-with-the-OneLake-Catalog-Search/ba-p/5176768

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Updates-Blogs/Pipelines-are-evolving-beyond-ETL/ba-p/5177527

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Mike and Tommy review the most underrated Fabric features based on buzz and client usage

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Mike & Tommy tackle the overfed golden dataset problem—when a single "source of truth" becomes a 100-table, 400-measure monster that takes four minutes to open. They explore why teams fall into the trap of cramming everything into one model, how fear of discrepant numbers drives over-centralization, and what it takes to split a bloated semantic model without breaking executive trust or reverting to data chaos.

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

This week on Explicit Measures, we tackle a critical "last mile" problem in Business Intelligence: how do you add narrative context to Power BI reports when the storytellers aren't Power BI users? Our listener has built monthly snapshot reports delivered to multiple business units, but marketing leads need to annotate these reports with context before they reach their final audience. We explore the gap between data delivery and storytelling, challenge assumptions about tool selection, and discuss practical patterns for integrating qualitative commentary with quantitative metrics—without breaking your data governance or forcing non-technical users into unfamiliar platforms.

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Mike & Tommy weigh in on whether Databricks and Microsoft Fabric are converging into direct competitors, exploring how Databricks' push into BI with Genie and AI capabilities is closing the gap on Power BI's presentation layer. They question whether "end-to-end" platforms are the future or just feature bloat, discuss where semantic models should live in a modern data stack, and help teams decide when to bet on one platform versus embracing the dual-stack reality.

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Mike & Tommy dive into improving AI skills for Fabric developers, exploring whether to start with prompt engineering or semantic modeling fundamentals, how to build real agents without organizational buy-in, and when AI tools actually add value beyond well-built reports. They tackle the tension between learning cutting-edge capabilities and mastering core BI craft, offering a practical 90-day roadmap for developers stuck in slow-adoption environments.

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Mike & Tommy dive into Joachim's repo-based golden semantic model architecture, exploring whether AI-assisted development is making the classic thin-report pattern obsolete and how upcoming MCP servers for report modeling might reshape architectural decisions. They weigh the trade-offs between file-based AI edits and application-layer safety, discuss when splitting reports makes sense, and tackle the question of whether Power BI developers are becoming software engineers by another name.

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/

Mike & Tommy recap their experiences at FabCon 2026, sharing key takeaways from sessions, conversations with the community, and highlights from the second day of the conference. They discuss standout moments, emerging trends in the Fabric ecosystem, and what these developments mean for practitioners working with Power BI and the broader Microsoft data platform.

Get in touch:

Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page.

Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/

Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎

Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips

Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/

Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/