Nobody trusted our internal dashboards. Now they live in code

Ably's experience with AI-driven dashboard creation highlighted significant challenges in data governance and trust, as inconsistent metrics led to a proliferation of ad hoc, unreliable dashboards. Initially, overwhelmed by the inadequacies of their chosen tool, Metabase, employees turned to AI agent Claude for solutions, which only exacerbated misinformation due to the lack of a cohesive data strategy. The company addressed these issues by introducing a "data warehouse genie," a governed system that centralizes knowledge and ensures consistent data querying, and by transitioning dashboards to a code-based, reviewable format that integrates directly with their existing repositories. This approach not only enhanced transparency and trust in data by allowing dashboards to carry their own definitions but also democratized the creation process, enabling non-engineers to contribute governed dashboards with the assistance of AI. The new system fosters continuous improvement by capturing learning from each dashboard build, thereby enriching the AI's knowledge base and ensuring that the answers it provides are increasingly accurate.