A lot moved in two months: Fabric data agents changed how they answer, Q&A visuals have a retirement date, and AI agents are now officially supported for building Power BI models and reports. Start with the first five items: they can affect live work right now.
Act on it
- Fabric data agents answer differently from November 2–10. Microsoft is upgrading how they write DAX and SQL and switching the AI model underneath. Re-test your data agents after November 10. Fabric blog
- Foundry agents that call a Fabric data agent the old way stop working on November 6. Agents built in Azure AI Foundry need to move to the new Fabric IQ tool. Fabric blog
- Q&A visuals are retired in February 2027. After that they show an error, so reports that use them need a plan. Copilot now works on every Fabric capacity from F2 up, which makes it an affordable replacement. Power BI blog
- Each semantic model can now block Copilot and other AI tools for read-only users. The switch is on by default. It is the answer when someone worries about AI on sensitive data. September update
- Fabric IQ MCP returns no data in Claude Code. Microsoft's newest connector for letting AI query Power BI has an open bug there, so test before you demo it. Microsoft's other Power BI query connector works. Bug report
Worth knowing
AI building models and reports
- AI agents building and editing Power BI models and reports are officially supported. It is out of preview, and the tools let the agent check its own work with screenshots. September update
- Power BI Projects is released, and the text-based report format is now the default. Reports and models are saved as text files; existing files convert as they are edited. September update
- Microsoft's connector that lets AI edit a Power BI model reached version 1.0. It now logs what the agent did, which helps when someone asks. An online version that needs no install is in preview. Release notes
- Tabular Editor 3 lets Claude Code edit the model you have open while you watch. Every change is marked and can be undone one by one. Tabular Editor blog
- Microsoft's AI report builder can now add custom visuals, not just the standard ones. October update
- SQLBI made a free connector that lets Claude install ready-made DAX functions into your model. No copy and paste, so no typos. SQLBI blog
Claude
- Claude can build dashboards that refresh themselves (beta). Tabular Editor got one running on a Power BI model, which makes a quick demo. It is not for shared reporting yet. Tabular Editor test
- New Claude models (Opus, Sonnet and Haiku 5.5) came out, all cheaper than before. Anthropic
- The newest AI models write much better DAX than ones a few months old, according to SQLBI's new test. Check it before you pick a model for DAX work. Results
Copilot
- Microsoft 365 Copilot answers questions about Power BI data, with sources, without opening Power BI. Good model naming now directly means better answers. September update
- Copilot in a report can show its steps and the DAX behind each answer, so users can check it. September update
- Fabric data agents can show charts, and in preview return up to 1,000 rows and take much longer business instructions. These fix the usual reasons people reject them. Fabric September update
Good techniques
- AI writing DAX works, as long as you review it, SQLBI now says. Their trick: have the AI ask you the business rules first, save them in a text file, then write the DAX from that. SQLBI article
- Write your modeling rules once in a "skill" file and any AI agent follows them. It is now an open standard used by Claude, Copilot and ChatGPT. Tabular Editor how-to
- Run your Best Practice Analyzer rules on every deployment, so an AI agent cannot ship a model that breaks them. Tabular Editor blog
New in Power BI
- A native Gantt chart (preview), with progress, milestones and a zoom slider. No more third-party Gantt visuals. October update
- The list slicer can be a dropdown (preview) that shows selections as removable pills. October update
- DirectQuery and composite models can be built and edited in the browser, so Desktop is not required. September update
- Fast text search inside models (preview), handy for searching customer feedback or tickets. Chris Webb shows what it costs in refresh time. Chris Webb
- A new Power Query editor (preview), with a diagram view and a dark theme. September update
- Export to Excel goes from 150,000 to 500,000 rows (coming soon). September update