Power BI Copilot, Data Agent Optimization & Performance

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.

Using Tableau with Microsoft Fabric & RLS

I’m a big fan of Power BI but that doesn’t mean that I’m not open to using different reporting and analytical tools in an enterprise modern data platform. People love Tableau with its long history as a leading visual dashboard and report design tool. Is Tableau an effective dashboarding and analytic reporting tool for a solution built using Microsoft Fabric? As I investigated this question for a new consulting client, my goal was to put aside any product prejudice I might have and approach the question with as little bias as possible.
The purpose of this article is not to compare Tableau to Power BI nor to expound on the strengths or perceived weaknesses of either product, but to share my experience and learnings about using Tableau with Microsoft Fabric and Power BI semantic models. I will demonstrate…