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AI is everywhere, no matter what industry you're in, how old you are or where you live. I mean, even my mum asked me about artificial intelligence! Naturally, this has many people in the BI world asking "Will AI replace report developers?".
Now, let me be clear… this is just my opinion. More of a prediction, really, and I could be completely wrong. But in many ways, the answer is leaning towards yes… AI can replace report developers and more. However, it’s not as black and white as that. It doesn’t mean the role of a report developer will vanish completely. So, in this blog, I’ll break it down into the following key areas where I would like to share my thoughts:
- Who will be replaced sooner?
- Who will be the ones that remain valuable?
- Why speed alone doesn’t determine the value of a report developer
- Skills to cultivate now
Who will be replaced sooner?
Not long ago I was talking to someone in the design industry who focuses on branding, so things like creating logos, brand guidelines and infographics for commercial use. They mentioned how AI has changed a lot for them. Those who simply churn out generic logos based on a quick client request, so what I call "What do you want" reports in the BI world, are struggling. AI tools can now generate logos and even brand guidelines to some extent in seconds and clients are starting to see less value in paying for something AI can do instantly.
However, designers who go beyond just making a logo, so those who sit down with clients to understand their brand’s deeper meaning, the emotions they want to evoke, the story they want their brand to tell are doing just fine. In fact, some are doing even better by using AI to enhance their workflow rather than replace it. Now, let’s bring this back to report development. It’s the same story or at least I think it will be the same story.
I have been pushing this for a while now, but those report developers, BI professionals, call them what you will call them… who simply take a high-level request from the business, don’t ask anything, launch Power BI (or any other tool) and drag some visuals onto a canvas without digging deeper are at risk. We already have various AI tools that can generate visuals in seconds. We even have Power BI Copilot that can already generate reports from a simple prompt. Now, are these tools in a position to replace those who create reports right now, no! If they can, you really need to up your work. Are they only going to be getting better, for sure! So, if all you do is build "what do you want" reports without understanding why the report is needed, AI is coming for you.
Think about the below dialogue between a report developer and an end-user:
- End-User: Hi Report Developer, we need a new report.
- Report Developer: Sure thing, what do you want?
- End-User: Show fundraising amount and some other KPIs broken down by campaign.
- Report Developer: Urmm okay, leave it with me.
- *Report Developer launches Power BI, creates report, publishes*
- Report Developer: You can now access the Power BI report.
In the above scenario, if you replace "report developer" with "AI tool" it seems very possible, because it is! These are those people who simply just take orders. So, if your idea of "report development" is simply asking a stakeholder "What do you want" or even worse, just waiting to be told, and then building exactly that with minimal discussion and discovery, you’re in the middle of AI’s crosshairs. But before we BI professionals start turning in our resignations, let’s dig deeper. AI might replace the task of churning out standard reports, but it can’t replace the value of a BI specialist who evolves with the changing landscape.
Now, I want to be clear… AI tools today don’t produce high-quality, sophisticated reports. Happy to be proven wrong! The reports generated by Power BI Copilot and similar AI-driven tools are still quite basic in my opinion. They can quickly throw together visuals, but they lack deep business context, well-thought-out user experience and true actionable insights. Hence I say not sophisticated, In fact, even from a visual appeal, I don’t think they look great.
But here’s the problem… Basic reports are exactly what I find many report developers producing today and as AI gets better, the gap between what AI can do and what a report developer offers will keep getting smaller. If a developer is just dragging and dropping visuals without pushing deeper into the business needs, their value is already questionable. This is why order-taking report developers are more at risk. They’re already operating at a level AI is catching up to. The ones who will survive (and thrive) are those who provide more than what AI can do today, so let's get into it.
Who will be the ones that remain valuable?
If your entire approach is to simply follow a "what do you want" approach, you’re adding little value beyond what the user already knows. And that is key "beyond what the user already knows".
So here is a major point for me… the truth is that this approach was never ideal to begin with. With or without AI. Many reports and dashboards fail not because we aren't using the right tool or we don’t have the needed features/capabilities, but because we don't spend the needed time with the end-users to ask more tailored questions, understand their goals and challenges and what they really need from the report they are requesting. So again, going beyond what the user already knows. I think a good way to look at this is that with every report request that an end-user makes is really a symptom of a deeper need or challenge they’re trying to solve. We need to find it!
So, to still provide value as a report developer, we need to go beyond dragging and dropping. We need to CONNECT with those who want the reports. We need to connect with them more on an emotional level and have REAL conversations to gauge where they are at and how they feel. To me, this will be ONE of the key differences between those report developers who will still be in demand versus those who will be pushed out by AI. This is why I think more than ever, it’s important to fix up our interpersonal skills, start feeling more comfortable connecting with people, asking and promoting questions in workshops, and helping users derive business value.
From my experience, and this is very common… end-users themselves struggle to articulate what they really need in a report. And I always call this out as being absolutely normal. They know their business area, their domain, but they are not reporting or data visualisation experts. They need someone to come in and ask the right questions, as I said connect with them. Don't mean to sound harsh, but not doing this is lazy work. To explain this with an example, they may ask for a specific table with columns or provide an already existing report to replicate simply because they know they need something and feel pressured to provide some sort of requirement.
To summarise, dig deeper and find out that the real objective or challenge behind the request. Is it falling regional sales, is it fa, or inefficiencies in a process – things the user’s initial request only hinted at. To avoid being replaced, you have to provide more than an automated tool can – which means upping your game in understanding and solving business problems, not just reporting on them.
Why speed does not determine the value of a report developer
I often see publications pushing the idea that AI brings business value simply because it generates reports faster. But speed alone isn’t what organisations truly need. Sure, we don’t want reporting to take forever, but the real goal is to create reports that drive action, provide insights and help solve business challenges.
If AI can produce basic "what do you want" reports, that’s a step up from order-taking report developers. It's got speed, right?! But it doesn’t fix the real issue… reports being churned out with little time connecting to the actual end users and understanding their true requirements. AI can’t walk into a workshop, pick up on a stakeholder’s concerns or facilitate discussions that uncover the deeper business questions. It lacks the emotional intelligence and critical thinking needed to create reports that actually matter.
Skills to cultivate now
So what does all this mean for report developers? In a nutshell, it would be a good idea to focus in on picking up some new skills and maybe getting comfortable in some other areas of report development. The role is shifting from just building reports to building understanding. To stay relevant, we need to double down on the human skills and knowledge side. Here are some key areas to focus on:
- Know Your Industry: Understanding industry trends, challenges and innovations helps you ask better questions, connect data to real business impact and move beyond just building reports.
- Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Don’t take requirements at face value. Put yourself in the end-users shoes, dig deeper. Instead of just asking "What do you want" ask more tailored questions to uncover what they actually need. Help refine their request into something that delivers real business value.
- Communication and Facilitation: Be more comfortable with facilitating meetings and workshops. This includes asking tailored questions to a large group of end-users, learning how to manoeuvre akward silences, rewording same question in different way to promote engagement, listening to answers whilst taking notes and coming up with relevant follow up questions.
- Build Stories, Then Dashboards: Focus on the story before jumping into visuals. A well-structured narrative ensures reports are meaningful, guiding users toward insights rather than just presenting data.
- Design & User Experience: Good UX makes a report intuitive, engaging and easy to use. AI can generate visuals, but the ability to structure them coherently with clear navigation and user-friendly design sets a great report apart.
- Continuous Learning: It's all evolving rapidly so continuously learning and staying up to date is a needed. Staying relevant means knowing of new tools, techniques and methodologies.
- Data Governance: More than ever, we will need a more solid data governance foundation, ensuring the right guardrails are in place to take advantage of all the features and capabilities. But at the same time, we need to make sure we find a balance and not over restrict where we aren't empowering end users.
Before I Finish Up…
I have not mentioned data ingestion, ETL, Data Modelling, purposely. Why? Well, I wanted this to focus purely on the report developer side of things. With that said, these are skills you should absolutely be upskilling in if you don’t feel comfortable here. If you are in Power BI, and just produce reports from an existing semantic model managed and maintained by others, definitely deep dive into these. For the more back-end experiences and tools used by data engineers, at minimum get comfortable with what they are, how they are used, why they are used. So in other words, feel comfortable talking about them with various other data professionals.
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