Microsoft Power BI

28.01.26. Microsoft Power BI makes Copilot its primary interface



Microsoft has released an update to its Power BI business analytics system. It places Copilot directly on the homepage as the primary interface (you can return to the old recommended content page using the toggle at the top of the homepage). You can now attach a report or semantic model to a Copilot chat as a reference source. The selected item appears in the chat and Copilot uses it as the basis for its responses. Power BI report authors can now customize the colors of visualizations using the theme color picker and a custom color picker. Azure Maps visualizations for Power BI now support a powerful new feature: markers. Markers allow you to display data points with customizable icons, resizable dimensions, and advanced formatting options, enhancing the clarity and expressiveness of geospatial analysis.


2015. Microsoft integrates Cortana into Power BI service



Microsoft announced that Cortana personal assistant is coming to Power BI, its business intelligence tool that, it’s worth noting, already had some natural language query capabilities. Once connected, Cortana can now answer questions from your Power BI data sets for written and spoken queries like “revenue for the last quarter” or draw you a chart for the “number of opportunities by team.” Users have to ensure that Cortana has access to their Power BI data sets by enabling this new feature in Power BI.  With Cortana Analytics, Microsoft also currently offers a more bespoke solution for enterprises that focuses less on the Cortana client and more on the machine learning and automation services that power Cortana.