How I turned approved SQL into governed business KPIs

In a lot of companies, executives and business teams want answers from company data, but they do not know SQL. That part is obvious. What is less obvious is that SQL is not the real problem. The real problem is this: How do you let non-technical users ask business questions about company data without exposing raw SQL, direct database access, or completely uncontrolled AI generated queries? That was the problem I wanted to solve. The naive solution looks attractive The first idea is always the same: Connect an AI assistant directly to the database and let people ask questions in natural language. At first, this sounds great. In practice, it creates a different set of problems: • the business definition of a metric is not stable • different prompts may produce different SQL for the same question • there is no strong boundary between approved and unapproved logic • scheduling, monitoring, and delivery workflows are still missing • auditability becomes weak very quickly • private environme