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Power Query is moving Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery and the other embedded-ODBC connectors onto Apache Arrow ADBC drivers, with a per-connector default flip followed by a cutover that breaks any refresh still pinned to ODBC. Microsoft has published pq-adbc-advisor, a read-only Fabric notebook that inventories every semantic model, dataflow and pipeline in a workspace and classifies each one as will fail, needs review or ready.
The retirement of Power BI Q&A, the legacy natural-language query experience, has slipped from December 2026 to February 2027 to give tenants longer to work out what depends on it before moving to Copilot. The post also recaps which experiences are affected and where things stand on Copilot capacity, embedded scenarios and sovereign clouds — worth reading if you have Q&A visuals in published reports or a linguistic schema anyone has invested in.
Copilot Studio gains natural-language app building alongside agents and workflows, rolling out in public preview; the same capability lands in Copilot Cowork as an /app skill, currently gated behind the Microsoft Frontier program. You describe the outcome, data and users, Copilot generates an app scaffold you can iterate on in conversation or inspect as code.
A benchmark comparing Import, DirectQuery and Direct Lake against Azure Databricks, with the numbers behind each. Useful ammunition next time someone insists DirectQuery is fine.
Workforce actions reachable from Copilot, Teams and Outlook, so supervisors handle scheduling without opening the app.
Microsoft's sample reports have been rebuilt on the modern visual defaults. Handy as a reference for what the new formatting model is supposed to look like in practice.
Fabric data agents are generally available inside Copilot Studio, so an agent can query Fabric data directly. Worth knowing before anyone builds a bespoke connector to do the same job.
On testing what an agent actually knows and closing the gaps, using SPFx dev skills as the worked example. Useful if you're past the demo stage and into whether the thing is reliable.
Microsoft is moving Power BI and Fabric connectivity from ODBC to ADBC and wants people validating now. If you rely on third-party ODBC drivers, this is the early warning — test before the transition lands, not after.
The Admin API now reports workspace networking policies across the whole tenant, so outbound access and private-link settings can be audited in one pass. Useful if you've been checking these a workspace at a time.
Fabric data agents can now generate more advanced DAX against semantic models. Preview, so treat what it writes as a first draft rather than something to ship.
Two things reach general availability in release 1.3.1162.68: dynamic content blocks, so updating a block refreshes every email that uses it rather than each one being edited by hand; and Copilot-powered conversational text messages, which pair Contact Center with a Copilot Studio agent so an SMS becomes a two-way conversation the journey can branch on.
The canvas authoring agent — the in-Studio assistant that builds and edits canvas apps from natural-language prompts — has moved from preview to general availability. It's on by default for canvas makers, so fold its output into your app review and ALM process rather than treating every screen as hand-built.
The August on-premises data gateway release. Routine, but gateway versions are one of the things that quietly break refreshes, so it's worth keeping current.
From September 2026 Microsoft is folding the Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Dataverse roadmaps into the single AI at Work roadmap, so upcoming capabilities, rollout progress and adoption planning all sit in one place. If you've been tracking the separate release-plan sites, that's where they're heading.
Direct Lake models can now carry calculated columns, closing one of the more awkward gaps against import models. Still preview, so check the fallback behaviour before you design around it.
An upgrade wizard for moving Dataflows Gen1 to Fabric Dataflows Gen2. If you've been putting off that migration, this is the sanctioned path — worth trialling on a low-stakes dataflow before you commit the important ones.
The August monthly round-up: the usual mix of visual, modelling and service changes in one place. Worth a skim even if you only care about one area — the summaries link straight to the detail.
Edit a Power BI project anywhere and reload it straight back into Desktop. Preview, and it pushes the .pbip story further towards treating reports as source you can work on outside Desktop.
Automates rotating schedules at scale rather than hand-building each rotation. Worth knowing about on any WEM engagement with shift patterns.
Second part of the Teams agent series, this one on keeping an agent useful in a noisy channel rather than making it another source of noise. Practical design guidance, not marketing.
You can now edit a semantic model as TMDL script directly in the browser, not just in Desktop. Useful for quick fixes and for anyone working somewhere Desktop isn't installed.
Developer tools for Work IQ are in preview — the layer that gives agents access to work context across Microsoft 365. Early, but it's where the extensibility story is heading.
Microsoft's combined July/August roundup of what actually shipped across Power Platform — flows, apps, Dataverse and governance. Worth ten minutes if you've stopped reading the release plans.
Microsoft Entra Agent ID now covers Dataverse, giving AI agents a first-class directory identity so their access to your data can be governed, audited and lifecycle-managed like any user's, instead of piggybacking on a maker or service account. Public preview.
Outbound emails and attachments can be evaluated against business-defined policies before they send. The obvious fit is regulated clients who have been nervous about agent-drafted email going out unchecked.
Conditional formatting now reaches line series and legend entries, so thresholds and status colours no longer need a workaround measure per line.
Update a dynamic content block once and every email using it refreshes, instead of hunting down each message. Version 1.2.2104.110.
Microsoft Brands and Interests, and Microsoft Enhanced Addresses, both moved to general availability. Worth revisiting if you ruled enrichment out on preview status.
MCP-compatible clients can reach cases, knowledge and workflows. Note this is the new server — the older D365 Service MCP Server is deprecated, so check which one an integration is pointed at.
Prompt columns, which run an AI prompt over each row and persist the result, are now generally available. You define the prompt once on the table and the output is stored like any other column, so apps, flows and views read it without re-invoking the model.
The Dataverse plugin for coding agents now reaches OpenAI and Codex via their marketplaces, letting those agents read and write Dataverse data directly rather than only through Microsoft's own tooling.
Modern visual defaults let you set formatting once for a whole report instead of visual by visual. In preview, and it changes how new visuals look, so read before turning it on mid-project.
The monthly Power BI feature summary for July 2026 — the single page that tells you what changed in Desktop and the service.
Power BI insights are being surfaced to Copilot users generally, not just people who live in Power BI. Changes who you need to think about when you set up row-level security.
A Dataverse plugin is now in the Cursor marketplace, so coding agents in Cursor can read tables, schema and metadata straight from Dataverse. Handy if your developers work in Cursor and want data context without hopping into the maker portal.
Sales exposes its data and actions to AI agents through MCP, so buying signals, conversation insights and CRM records can be reached by tools outside the app. Relevant if a client is planning anything agentic on top of Sales.
The Link to Fabric setup flow in Dataverse has been reworked, tidying how you mirror Dataverse tables into OneLake and Fabric. Same feature, cleaner path through it, worth a look if you wire these links up often.
The unified manifest has reached general availability for Office add-ins, so Teams apps, add-ins and Copilot extensions now share one packaging format instead of three. If you're still shipping the old XML manifest, this is the point to plan the move.
A proper date picker slicer option, in preview. The thing people have been building awkward workarounds for since forever.
Microsoft's repositioning of Customer Insights from a standalone CDP to the profile layer other agents read from. Sets the direction if a client is deciding where the unified profile should live.
Service Agent moves past assistance into taking action across cases, knowledge, email and workflow from inside Microsoft 365 Copilot.
First part of the dev-blog series on building agents that live inside Teams conversations, covering how to turn a thread into a concrete action rather than another chat window.
SharePoint Copilot Apps in public preview: turning intent into an app surface inside Microsoft 365 Copilot. Preview, so expect the shape to move.
The agent runs alongside the human workflow on live cases without acting, so you can measure it against real traffic before switching it on. This is the answer to the client who wants agents but not the risk.
Shape Map is finally out of preview after years in limbo, with custom TopoJSON map support for regions the built-in maps never covered.
Power Pages sites can now authorise visitors straight against Dataverse's own security model - roles, row ownership and column security - instead of the separate table-permissions layer. In public preview, so retest an existing site's access before you switch it over.
Move To, Reassign To, map view, week numbers and partial cancellation. Small things, but they are the ones dispatchers complain about on every project.
Tooltip options reach GA — modern tooltips, report-page tooltips and per-visual overrides, all configurable without the old formatting-pane hunt.
Microsoft's monthly round-up of the agent-facing Dataverse work — MCP tooling, knowledge sources and the intelligence features. Useful for tracking what's actually GA versus still preview, which moves month to month at the moment.
Visual calculations are generally available: DAX written against the visual's own result set rather than the model. Good for running totals and ranks you'd otherwise contort the model to support.
Fabric Apps can now be built on semantic model data alongside Power BI reports. Relevant if you're deciding what belongs in a report and what belongs in an app on the same model.
Decides when and how often to contact each customer from engagement history and live signals, rather than the fixed timing you set in the journey. Preview at version 1.2.1258.89 — check status before designing around it.
Customer Insights – Data can now connect to a OneLake workspace that has inbound access protection switched on, which unblocks the security-conscious client. Separately, a Customer Insights MCP Server entered preview so agents can be grounded in unified profiles.
A bridge between Desktop and the service aimed at editing projects in place. Early days, but it points at where the .pbip authoring story is going.
A prebuilt Onboarding Agent lands in Dynamics 365 Human Resources to walk new starters through their first days. Relevant only if the client runs D365 HR, but it's another packaged agent to fold into licensing and governance planning.
Built on Microsoft 365 Copilot and Dynamics 365, Service Agent gives one Copilot surface for understanding an issue, finding the answer and acting on it.
Microsoft is aiming Copilot in Excel squarely at finance work, building on the Frontier programme. If you advise finance teams, look at how it handles structured models and whether its outputs are auditable enough for their controls.
Protection policies are now GA: apply a sensitivity label's protection once and have it hold wherever the data goes. The obvious answer to 'what happens when someone exports it'.
Entra ID SSO for the Denodo connector, so Denodo-sourced reports can pass through the viewer's identity instead of a shared service account. Preview.