Talk to Power BI from Claude using MCP (even on a Mac!)
AI Summary
This video explores how to use AI to interact conversationally with data in PowerBI using different tools like PowerBI Q&A, Copilot, and Fabric data agents. The presenter demonstrates a fitness workout semantic model in Microsoft Fabric’s Copilot chat and highlights Copilot’s explicit, question-answering approach and limitations with broad or complex queries. The video then introduces Claude Desktop with MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, showing how Claude can use custom Python MCP servers to dynamically query semantic models with more flexibility and contextual understanding. The presenter runs a workout evaluation on a Mac using Claude, illustrating a richer, more iterative, and autonomous conversational AI experience than Copilot offers. The video emphasizes the importance of model preparation and schema provision for improved AI interaction and discusses the empowering potential of MCP servers, including local and remote tool integrations with security considerations. It clarifies that such AI conversational approaches complement, but do not replace, traditional dashboards and reports, serving instead to provide subjective analysis, challenge assumptions, and generate new insights to support data-driven decision making.