About Dave
Helping Power BI Teams Prepare for the Next Era of Business Intelligence
Greetings! I’m Dave Langer.
I’m an independent consultant, technical trainer, author, and Microsoft MVP who helps organizations prepare for Generative BI.
For years, business intelligence has primarily been about dashboards, reports, and analysts translating data into answers.
Generative AI is changing that.
Business users will increasingly expect to ask questions of their data directly. But reliable conversational analytics takes more than putting an AI interface in front of a database.
AI needs to understand the business.
That means understanding measures, terminology, relationships, analytical rules, and the meaning behind the data.
That’s where I focus my work.
From Data Science to Generative BI
Generative BI is a new focus for Dave on Data, but it builds naturally on the work I’ve been doing for many years.
My background is in applied analytics and data science.
I’ve helped professionals and organizations use techniques such as machine learning, forecasting, segmentation, lead scoring, and other advanced analytics to solve real business problems. I’ve also trained thousands of professionals in practical analytics skills.
That experience shapes how I approach Generative BI.
I tend to ask practical questions:
Will the AI understand what this metric actually means?
Does it know which date to use?
Can it distinguish a sales order from a sales order line?
Does the semantic model contain enough business context for the AI to reason correctly?
Those details become extremely important when organizations move from people interpreting dashboards to AI interpreting business data.
I’m a Teacher at Heart
One constant throughout my career has been teaching - starting with teaching C++ at Seattle-area community colleges in the early 2000s in the evenings after my day job.
What I learned then was that complex technology doesn’t have to be taught in a complex way.
I break technical concepts into understandable pieces, connect them to familiar business problems, and build hands-on skills through practical examples.
That philosophy has shaped my classroom training, consulting, books, online courses, tutorials, and conference talks.
It also shapes how I work with Power BI teams adopting Generative BI.
Rather than treating Generative BI as a mysterious AI initiative, I help teams understand what is changing, why it matters, and what they can actually do about it.
Experience That Bridges Business & Tech
My career has included hands-on analytics work, analytics leadership, advising C-level executives, consulting, technical education, and content development.
Today, I bring those experiences together to help organizations navigate the intersection of:
Business Intelligence
Semantic Modeling
Generative AI
Analytics
Microsoft Fabric
I’m also a Microsoft MVP, LinkedIn Top Voice, and a published technical author.
But the common thread across all of my work is simpler:
I help people use data and technology to solve real business problems.
Looking for Data Science Help?
Although Generative BI is now the primary focus of Dave on Data, I continue to offer selected data science and machine learning training and consulting.
My established work includes areas such as:
machine learning
forecasting
segmentation
predictive analytics
Python and Python in Excel
practical data science training