Power BI

What it is

Microsoft’s business-analytics platform for connecting to data, modelling it, building interactive reports and dashboards and sharing them. Authoring is mostly in the free Power BI Desktop (Windows) or in the browser; consumption is via the Power BI service, mobile apps, embedded apps or an on-premises Power BI Report Server. Since 2023 it is the BI workload of Microsoft Fabric; existing Power BI content and workspaces did not need migration (Microsoft Learn, 2026-03-23).

Maker and history

• Maker: Microsoft (Microsoft).
• History (Wikipedia, secondary): grew out of Power Pivot / Power Query in Excel and the “Project Crescent” work of the SQL Server Reporting Services team; “Power BI for Office 365” unveiled September 2013; general availability 2015-07-24 with desktop, web and mobile; Datazen (mobile BI) acquired April 2015.
• Microsoft is retiring Power BI Premium per-capacity (P) SKUs in favour of Fabric (F) capacity (Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-10-05).

Products and editions (names only, no prices)

• Power BI Desktop: free authoring app (Windows); monthly releases. Power BI Report Server uses a separate “optimized” Desktop build.
• Power BI service (app.powerbi.com): workspaces, apps / org apps, dataflows, scheduled refresh, subscriptions, row-level security (RLS), sensitivity labels.
• Power BI Mobile: iOS/Android viewing apps.
• Power BI Report Server: on-premises server for .pbix, paginated (.rdl) reports and KPIs; licensed by cores via Fabric F64+ reserved capacity or SQL Server Enterprise/Standard (SQL Server 2025) or Enterprise with active Software Assurance (earlier versions); a Pro licence is needed to publish.
• Power BI Embedded / embedded analytics: “embed for your customers” (app owns data, A SKUs from Azure, end users need no licence) and “embed for your organization” (user owns data, each user licensed). Capacity can be A, P/EM or F SKUs.
• Paginated reports (Power BI Report Builder) for print-ready documents.
• Per-user licences: Free (Fabric), Pro, Premium Per User (PPU). Capacity: Fabric F SKUs (F2 to F8192), trial capacity, legacy P/EM/A. On F64 and larger, users with a Free licence and a Viewer role can view content; below F64 each viewer needs Pro or PPU. PPU does not provide a Fabric capacity. Details: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/enterprise/licenses. Pricing page: https://www.microsoft.com/power-platform/products/power-bi/pricing.

Data connectivity and modelling

• 100+ connectors; Power Query (M language) for shaping; semantic models (formerly datasets) hold tables, relationships and measures; DAX is the calculation and query language (also used by Analysis Services Tabular and Excel Power Pivot).
• Storage modes: Import, DirectQuery, Direct Lake (Fabric only; reads Delta tables in OneLake, VertiPaq speed without a full import refresh; “Direct Lake on OneLake” and “Direct Lake on SQL” variants), and composite models.
• Developer tooling: TMDL and PBIP project files for Git, TMDL view (now also in the web service, July 2026), DAX query view, visual calculations (GA, July 2026), DAX user-defined functions (announced at Build 2026), XMLA endpoint, REST APIs, external tools (Tabular Editor, DAX Studio, Bravo).

Deployment

Cloud SaaS (Power BI service, inside Fabric), on-premises (Report Server), embedded in apps (Embedded) and Microsoft 365 surfaces (Teams, SharePoint, Excel, PowerPoint add-in). Data stays in the tenant’s home region; see the Copilot caveats below.

AI features as of 2026-10-05

Status taken from Microsoft Learn pages dated 2026-08 / 2026-09 unless noted.

• Copilot in Power BI (needs paid Fabric F2+ or Power BI Premium P1+ capacity, or a Fabric Copilot capacity; not on trial SKUs; Pro or PPU alone is not enough; sovereign-cloud availability not verified). Billing is by tokens in capacity units. Enabled by default in the tenant, admins can switch off. Data goes to Azure OpenAI; outside the US/EU data boundary a cross-geo tenant setting must be enabled by an admin.
  • Report pane Copilot (“report agent”): GA. Summaries, Q&A on an open report, narrative visual, create report pages, DAX query writing, measure descriptions, summaries in subscriptions.
  • Standalone Copilot / Power BI agent (full-screen, finds and queries any item you can access) and Copilot in apps (app-scoped, supports verified answers): preview; standalone is on by default where Copilot is enabled (since September 2025) and an “Approved for Copilot” setting limits what it searches.
  • Copilot in web modeling (analyse and edit semantic models in natural language): preview.
  • Prepare data for AI (AI instructions, verified answers, schema metadata) improves answers.
• Agent Skills for Power BI (announced at Microsoft Build 2026, blog posts dated 2026-06-02, preview): skills that let a coding agent build and refine semantic models, report pages and PBIR files. Docs: “Power BI agentic overview”. The powerbi-authoring agent plugin bundles skills plus the local MCP server.
• MCP servers (Model Context Protocol):
  • Fabric IQ MCP: remote, read-only, GA (docs 2026-09-14). Finds Power BI reports and semantic models, reads metadata, searches values, runs DAX under the user’s own permissions (RLS/OLS apply). Endpoint https://fabriciq.svc.cloud.microsoft/v1/mcp/fabriciq. Microsoft now calls it the primary server for consumption.
  • Power BI Consumption MCP server (https://api.fabric.microsoft.com/v1/mcp/powerbi): earlier remote endpoint, preview; tools Execute Query, Get Semantic Model Schema, Get Report Metadata, Generate Query (the last uses Copilot capacity). Admin must enable a tenant setting.
  • Power BI Authoring MCP server: create/edit semantic models. Local: GA (MIT-licensed code with an EULA; npm @microsoft/powerbi-modeling-mcp, VS Code extension; not on macOS); hosted: preview (.../v1/mcp/powerbi/authoring). Docs recommend backups and PBIP under Git because agents can make irreversible changes.
• Fabric apps for semantic models (Build 2026, preview): AI-built custom web apps over semantic models; consumers need only Read permission on the model from end of August 2026.
• Fabric data agents (GA, F2+ capacity): natural-language Q&A over semantic models, lakehouses and more; see Microsoft Fabric.
• Monthly releases: June 2026 had the AI headline (agent skills, web modeling Copilot); July 2026 had none (TMDL view in the service GA, org app audiences GA); August 2026: Copilot Summary and Narrative can read visuals hidden behind bookmarks, Direct Lake calculated columns (preview), Theme pane GA (Microsoft Learn what’s-new, 2026-08-18). A “Desktop Bridge” for external agents was listed as preview by Releasebot (secondary, unverified against Microsoft).

Strengths and weaknesses vs peers

Items are the author’s opinion unless a source is named.

• Strengths: free desktop authoring; deep Microsoft 365 / Excel / Teams integration; an ecosystem of DAX resources and tools (SQLBI, Tabular Editor); governance integration with Purview and Entra (per Microsoft docs); Direct Lake on OneLake; first-party MCP servers.
• Weaknesses: licensing is layered (per-user vs capacity vs Fabric SKUs) and changes often; Copilot needs paid capacity, so small Pro-only teams are excluded; Desktop is Windows-only; DAX has a learning curve (opinion).
• Peers: Looker Studio (free, Google-centred), Tableau and Qlik (separate notes in this folder if present), SSRS (see microsoft-fabric-terminology-guide and the SSRS notes in KB-TECH/DATABASES). General BI context: business-intelligence. Looker MCP counterpart: Looker MCP server.

Self-learning

Ordered path with levels in Power BI learning path. Highlights (all opened 2026-10-05):

• Microsoft Learn, “Get started with Microsoft data analytics” (4 modules incl. Copilot in Power BI; free): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/data-analytics-microsoft/.
• Microsoft Learn course PL-300T00 “Design and manage analytics solutions using Power BI” (free self-paced modules; 3-day instructor-led format): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/courses/pl-300t00.
• Certification Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate, exam PL-300 (paid, proctored, 100 minutes, renew yearly free on Learn; skills measured as of 2026-04-20 now include Copilot tasks and choosing Direct Lake): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/data-analyst-associate/, study guide https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/resources/study-guides/pl-300.
• Related: Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate (DP-600; English version updated 2026-10-19): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/fabric-analytics-engineer-associate/.
• SQLBI (Marco Russo, Alberto Ferrari): https://www.sqlbi.com/; DAX Guide https://dax.guide/; DAX Patterns https://www.daxpatterns.com/ (free online).
• Guy in a Cube (Adam Saxton, Patrick LeBlanc; YouTube, free); Curbal (Ruth Pozuelo Martinez; free videos plus paid courses): https://curbal.com/; Enterprise DNA (free account plus paid plans): https://enterprisedna.co/.

Sources (fetched 2026-10-05)

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/power-bi-overview
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/copilot-introduction (2026-08-24)
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/copilot-enable-power-bi
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/whats-new (August 2026)
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/enterprise/licenses
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/report-server/get-started
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/embedded/embedded-analytics-power-bi
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/mcp/power-bi-authoring-mcp and .../remote-mcp-server-get-started
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/iq/connectors/fabric-iq-mcp
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/fundamentals/direct-lake-overview
• https://enterprisedna.co/resources/news/power-bi-july-2026-feature-summary-tmdl-web-conditional-formatting/ (secondary)
• https://releasebot.io/updates/microsoft/power-bi and https://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2026/06/microsoft-build-2026-announcements/ (secondary, Build 2026)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Power_BI (secondary, history)
• https://www.sqlbi.com/, https://www.daxpatterns.com/, https://dax.guide/, https://curbal.com/, https://enterprisedna.co/

Open items

• Power BI June and September 2026 feature-summary blog posts (community.fabric.microsoft.com) returned 403; June/Build content is from secondary sources. Re-check the September 2026 summary.
• Exact Power BI Desktop version numbers and the Desktop Bridge preview not verified.
• Guy in a Cube site could not be parsed; channel description comes from search results, not a primary page. No vault video summaries were checked (yt-base was not mounted in this session).
• Price and per-user licence amounts intentionally omitted.