Dashboards! The Next Foundation for AI

Michael Benassi, Vice President of Enterprise Analytics, United Federal Credit Union

Michael Benassi is a two-time Qlik Luminary with over two decades of experience transforming complex data into strategic insights that drive organizational performance. He leads enterprise initiatives in advanced analytics, AI and business intelligence, championing a culture where data informs every decision. Benassi holds a Master’s in Business Analytics from the University of Notre Dame and executive credentials in Data Strategy from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Death of the Dashboard? Not So Fast

Over the past year, headlines have proclaimed the Death of the Dashboard, as artificial intelligence (AI) takes center stage in analytics. It’s a compelling narrative but history suggests otherwise. When dashboards first emerged, many predicted the demise of Excel. Yet, decades later, Excel remains a staple in nearly every organization. In fact, most people still joke that the most-used feature of many dashboards is still the ability to export data back into Excel. Why? Trust.

Trust is the Currency of Analytics

Dashboards became popular because they offered a structured, visual way to interpret data. But even then, users wanted to validate what they saw by digging into the raw details. That instinct for verification hasn’t disappeared; it has intensified with AI. Every step we take to obscure underlying data increases skepticism. The promise of speed and automation by AI is undeniable, but without trust, its value is diminished.

Building trust requires a full analytics lifecycle:

Data details for transparency. KPIs and dashboards for clarity and guided storytelling.

Trusted AI responses for efficiency and scale.

Organizations that integrate these layers will lead in the short term. Dashboards provide trusted data and visual narratives, while AI accelerates navigation and insight generation. Together, they create a powerful synergy.

The Hybrid Future: Integrating Dashboards and AI

All these tools Excel, dashboards, AI have a role to play. The real question is how to leverage them collectively to drive business outcomes. Consider this framework:

Details for analysts who need granular control.

Dashboards for users who demand trust and context with time to research.

“AI will reshape analytics, but dashboards aren’t dead, they’re evolving. In the short term, dashboards deliver trust, and AI delivers efficiency. In the long term, AI will likely dominate, but its outputs will feel more like dynamic dashboards—visual, contextual, and intuitive insights delivered on demand.”

AI for quick, directional answers that don’t require exhaustive validation.

Will dashboards eventually die? No. Will they stop being the first stop for answers? Yes. Over time, business analysts will use AI to build dashboards automatically. And dashboards themselves may cease to be destinations. They’ll become the answers AI serves up.

Imagine asking, how many customers do we have? Instead of a simple number, AI delivers a dashboard-like response: KPIs, charts by region, demographic breakdowns all in a clean, visual format. The dashboard you once visited now comes to you, dynamically generated by AI.

Dashboards as AIs Foundation

The current value dashboards can bring to AI is significant: they house purpose-built, vetted and trusted datasets that define business terminology and metrics. These curated sources provide the context AI needs to deliver fast, efficient and accurate answers. Without this foundation, AI risks producing outputs that lack alignment with organizational standards. Dashboards aren’t just visual tools, they’re repositories of governance and trust that AI can leverage to scale insights responsibly.

Why Dashboards Still Matter?

Despite this future vision, dashboards aren’t disappearing anytime soon. AI has tremendous potential, but trust takes time to build. For the next few years, expect a hybrid model where dashboards and AI coexist. Dashboards offer something AI doesn’t yet fully replicate, a trusted discovery journey. While AI answers your question, dashboards provide surrounding context, other relevant metrics and visuals that spark deeper analysis.

Could AI eventually replicate this? Yes, with time and investment. But today, dashboards remain critical for guiding exploration and validating assumptions. They help users perform the sniff test to ensure results align with expectations, a safeguard against blind reliance on AI.

Practical Example: Marketing List Creation

Consider a marketing team building a targeted customer list. A dashboard provides trusted data and KPIs, while AI accelerates filtering and ideation. AI suggests attributes to consider and tests combinations quickly. Meanwhile, the dashboard displays priority visuals, income levels, regional distribution, engagement metrics. So, the marketer can confirm alignment with campaign goals. Without this trust layer, AIs efficiency can backfire, leaving users second-guessing prompts and results.

AI will reshape analytics, but dashboards aren’t dead, they’re evolving. In the short term, dashboards deliver trust, and AI delivers efficiency. In the long term, AI will likely dominate, but its outputs will resemble dashboard’s visual, contextual and intuitive served up on demand.

For now, the winners will be organizations that embrace both. By integrating dashboards and AI, they’ll combine trust with speed, creating a user experience that drives confidence and action. The future isn’t about dashboards versus AI, it’s about dashboards and AI, working together to transform how we consume insights.

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