Microsoft Copilot in Power BI: What are the main features?

Introducing Microsoft Copilot in Power BI

Copilot in Power BI exploits the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence to support the creation of dynamic reports, visualizations and summaries useful for decision-making processes.

Copilot therefore offers a full support in advanced data analysis, allowing companies and professionals to manage the vast amount of information that revolves around their activities and to quickly identify strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement in their business strategies.

In addition to generating content, AI guides users in interpreting data by answering questions and suggesting the most useful formulas for obtaining meaningful insights. Thanks to these features and Copilot’s conversational chat, Power BI finally becomes accessible even for less experienced users.

Creating a narrative with Copilot in Microsoft Power BI

How to enable Microsoft Copilot in Power BI

Copilot is available in public preview both within Power BI Desktop and in the Power BI Service. However, before you can work with AI on your data sets, you need to meet certain requirements.

To access Copilot in Power BI Service:

• The administrator must enable Copilot functionality at the tenant level.
• The workspace must be running in Power BI’s F64 or Premium capacity.

To enable Copilot in Power BI Desktop:

• You must write access to a workspace located in F64 or Power BI Premium in the Power BI service, where you plan to publish the report.

Once these requirements have been met, it will be possible to interact with Copilot from the dedicated conversation window (accessible from the “Copilot” voice in the main interface) or through new commands in the various sections of Power BI, such as the query area or the screen for adding measures.

Obviously, only users with the right licenses can access Copilot functionality in Power BI. You must then ensure that you have the appropriate licenses.

Creating a Power BI report with Microsoft Copilot

The main features of Microsoft Copilot in Power BI

Copilot offers advanced features, now in public preview, to simplify data analysis in Power BI, making it an activity accessible even to users who are new to the platform. One of the main features concerns the creation of content.

Starting from the information and requests shared in chat, Copilot reprocesses the data sets entered in Power BI for generate a dynamic reportin a few seconds (sometimes minutes, if the set is large). Each report consists of a series of pages that the user can decide to modify, regenerate or use immediately to build their analyses.

Still with regard to the creation of content, it is possible to ask the AI to generate visual objects such as bar charts, pie charts, maps, tables and scatter plots to interactively explore the relationships and patterns present in the dataset.

Copilot can also Suggest DAX formulas to manipulate information and gain useful insights.

When building the dataset, users can use the Copilot chat to describe what they would like to obtain from the imported data and then obtain the DAX formula suitable for achieving the objective. Incredible help, which will soon also be available for writing queries.

The summary of reportsis another important feature that should be mentioned.

You only need read-only permission to generate a summary of an entire report or of the individual visual objects included. To do this, you can use the chat or select a quick prompt such as:

• Provide a summary of the report
• Summarize the visual objects on the page
• Create a bulleted list with the main information

Copilot provides its response, indicating the exact point in the report from which it took the information or on which it relied to draw its conclusions. With new questions, users can then delve into the aspects of their interest, gain new insights, and quickly navigate reports shared by colleagues.

One last feature to highlight concerns the writing of synonyms for Q&A objects.

This is the possibility of configuring a Q&A visual object to improve its understanding of the questions and, consequently, the ability to provide more precise and relevant answers to users. Specifically, Copilot suggests synonyms to add to guide the search for information to a specific field or table of data, based on the words used by users in their questions.

Managing data in Power BI with Microsoft Copilot

FAQ on Microsoft Copilot in Power BI

What is Microsoft Copilot in Power BI?Microsoft Copilot in Power BI is a generative AI tool designed to assist users in creating dynamic reports, visualizations, and summaries to enhance decision-making processes. It allows both experienced and new users to quickly interpret data, identify trends, and generate insights.

How do I enable Microsoft Copilot in Power BI?To enable Microsoft Copilot in Power BI, administrators must activate it at the tenant level for Power BI Service and ensure the workspace operates in F64 or Premium capacity. Additionally, users need proper licenses to access the functionality.

What are the main features of Microsoft Copilot in Power BI?Microsoft Copilot in Power BI offers features like generating reports based on user input, creating visualizations (charts, tables, maps), suggesting DAX formulas, summarizing reports, and enhancing Q&A visual objects with synonyms for better data querying.

How does Microsoft Copilot in Power BI assist with data visualization?Microsoft Copilot in Power BI assists with data visualization by generating interactive charts, maps, and tables from datasets. Users can request specific visual objects, allowing for a more accessible exploration of data patterns and relationships.

Can Microsoft Copilot in Power BI generate DAX formulas?Yes, Microsoft Copilot in Power BI can suggest DAX formulas based on user input to help manipulate data and extract meaningful insights, simplifying complex data analysis tasks.

What role does Microsoft Copilot in Power BI play in report summaries?Microsoft Copilot in Power BI can generate summaries of entire reports or individual visual objects by using chat prompts. It provides concise bullet points and references specific parts of the report for easy navigation.

How does Microsoft Copilot in Power BI enhance Q&A functionality?Microsoft Copilot in Power BI improves Q&A visual objects by suggesting synonyms to make queries more accurate. This helps users get better, more relevant answers when interacting with their data.

Do I need a license to use Microsoft Copilot in Power BI?Yes, a proper Power BI license is required to access Microsoft Copilot functionality in Power BI. Users must also ensure their workspace meets the necessary capacity requirements (F64 or Premium).