Category: Data Agents

BI Projects, Business Analytics, Copilot, Data Agents, Dimensional Modeling, Microsoft BI Platform, Power BI, Self-service BI, Semantic Models

Power BI Copilot, Data Agent Optimization & Performance

Paul Turley

Amid the AI frenzy, there is a lot of conversation about how business users will use agentic chat to answer business questions rather than interactive, dashboard-style reports. Is there truly a shift in the industry, and is agentic analytics going to change the way most business users consume data?

Just how viable is the whole “chat with your data” option, and is it really a replacement for conventional reporting? I recently heard a VP-level leader at a large consulting firm say something to the effect of “we need to stop investing in dashboard-building skills and focus on creating AI-driven data analysis solutions for our consulting customers.” I’m paraphrasing from memory, but that was the sentiment. Are all business leaders across the industry giving up their dashboards, interactive visual reports and scorecards in exchange for AI chat? No. Of course they aren’t — but conversational analysis is a new way to consume business data.

BI Projects, Certification Exams, Data Agents, Data Factory, Data Governance, Direct Lake, Fabric, Microsoft BI Platform, Microsoft Fabric, Ontologies

FabCon & SQLCon: What I expect to learn in Atlanta this year

Paul Turley

What do I want to learn at FabCon this year? I have high expectations for the FabCon conference during the week of March 16-20, 2026. With over 30,000 organizations actively using Fabric in production, I expect to hear much more about what we’ve learned, how to plan, optimize and monitor Fabric solutions rather than marketing rhetoric about new and upcoming features. There will be announcements and I’m interested in the long-term product vision, but I am anxious to learn more from others who are in the trenches and using Fabric day-to-day.

Visit Me in the Community Lounge

I will be in the community lounge expert’s area from 9 to 11 on Thursday answering questions about Fabric certifications. I have a new O’Reilly book on the PL-300 exam and recently delivered Fabric certification prep sessions for the DP-600 and DP-700 exams.