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Field notes on trusted analytics.

Thinking about composable BI, context graphs, and the future of business analytics.

August 26, 2026 - Semantic Layer, Governance, Analysis

The Verbs Were Never Governed

Semantic layers govern many business nouns. The long tail of analytical verbs—growing, declining, churning, outperforming—still carries choices that need to be made visible.

Venkatesh Seetharam & Harish Butani

August 19, 2026 · self-service-bi · trust · opinion

Self-Service Gave Us Access, Not Agreement

Self-service BI expanded access to data. It did not settle which definition, report, or interpretation a business question should use.

Venkatesh Seetharam & Harish Butani

August 12, 2026 · text-to-sql · bitter-lesson · opinion

Why Direct Text-to-SQL Hits a Governance Wall

Direct text-to-SQL can generate excellent code. The governance problem begins when the business interpretation exists only inside that generation step.

Venkatesh Seetharam & Harish Butani

August 5, 2026 · bi · adoption · research

BI Works. So Why Do Only 16% Use It Regularly?

BARC reports strong benefits where BI is used, yet only 16% regular use in large enterprises. We think part of the gap is translation: from a new business question to governed analysis.

Venkatesh Seetharam & Harish Butani

July 29, 2026 · agentic-bi · semantic-layer · vision

The Engine Is Not the System

Anthropic published a detailed account of how it runs self-service analytics with Claude. Read closely, it's the strongest case yet for why a model alone won't do your BI — and what has to sit around it.

Venkatesh Seetharam & Harish Butani