The Future of Data Is Push, Not Pull
- Dave Findlay
- Aug 6
- 3 min read
Most data workflows still start with a question:
“What happened with churn?”
“Can you pull numbers on Q2 pipeline?”
“Why is revenue down in the west?”
The business identifies a decision, then goes looking for data to support it.
That’s the default motion: someone asks, and someone pulls.
But what if it worked the other way around?
The Shift
We’re entering a new phase of data delivery. A phase where answers don’t need to be fetched.
They arrive.
Agent-style tools are making that possible.
With embedded context, natural language capabilities, and a better understanding of business workflows, these tools are flipping the script.
Instead of waiting to be queried, they surface what matters:
🚨 “Churn rate just spiked for last month’s onboarded customers.”
✅ “Retention improved in your newest cohort — want to know why?”
💡 “Revenue in the west is down 22% compared to last quarter.”
These are not dashboards. They’re signals.
They show up at the right time, in the right place, with just enough context to spark the right action.
Why Dashboards Fall Short
Dashboards made data more accessible, but they’ve always relied on one thing:
Someone has to go looking.
That worked when access was the goal. But today?
Time and attention are the bottlenecks.
People aren’t starved for data. They’re starved for clarity.
And dashboards, as useful as they are, often fall short:
• Designed around tools, not people
• Full of content, but low on context
• Requiring clicks, filters, interpretation
They don’t say, “Here’s what matters right now.”
They just show you what’s available, and hope you find it.
Push Is Not Spam. It’s Relevance
This isn’t about replacing dashboards with a flood of noisy alerts.
Push only works when it’s trusted, timely, and tied to a real business moment.
That means:
• Knowing your audience
• Understanding the decisions they’re facing
• Designing signals that are specific, actionable, and grounded in context
A well-timed signal doesn’t distract. It focuses.
It helps the right person do the right thing without having to dig through layers of UI to find the signal themselves.
The Role of the Data Team Is Changing
In this new world, the data team’s role expands:
• From building dashboards to building signal systems
• From serving ad hoc questions to surfacing emerging patterns
• From passively delivering insights to actively accelerating decisions
This isn’t a replacement for exploratory analysis or curiosity-driven work.
It’s an evolution of how we keep the business aligned, informed, and confident.
Push makes good data visible without requiring effort from every user.
Final Thought
Push is not the end of pull.
There will always be a need for digging, exploring, and playing with data.
But the business can’t afford to run on curiosity alone.
It needs clarity, speed, and guidance.
And the next generation of data experiences will deliver that, not in dashboards, but in nudges.
When your data knows what matters and tells you when it does that’s when it becomes useful.
At Fuse, we believe a great data strategy only matters if it leads to action.
If you’re ready to move from planning to execution — and build solutions your team will actually use — let’s talk.
