Microsoft Power BI (Copilot)
Microsoft's BI and reporting platform with Copilot for natural language report building and data Q&A.
Best for Microsoft 365 organizations building shared reports
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What it does
Microsoft Power BI is a unified analytics platform that connects governed business data to generate interactive visual reports and automated dashboards. Users input data from cloud or on premises sources and use natural language to generate visual layouts, text summaries, and answers to questions. It is designed for team members of any skill level, including analysts, decision makers, and new employees.
Read more: 5 features and how people use themShow less
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Natural language report generation
Interprets written descriptions and requests to automatically pull relevant data and generate complete visual reports without manual design effort.
Use caseA business analyst describes the report they need in natural language to produce visualizations without building the layout by hand.
From microsoft.com -
AI generated insights and narratives
Creates written text summaries and narrative descriptions to reveal key patterns and explain data changes.
Use caseA sales manager adds a text summary to an executive dashboard explaining why quarterly sales spiked.
From microsoft.com -
AI grounded data questions
Answers plain conversational questions using AI that relies on your business records.
Use caseA decision maker asks a direct question about company performance to receive trusted answers based on business data.
From microsoft.com -
Interactive agentic applications
Builds interactive applications using conversational prompts directly over verified data models.
Use caseA team creates interactive applications with natural language to allow users to trigger workflows and make decisions.
From microsoft.com -
Microsoft Fabric integration
Connects reporting tools straight to the broader data platform to unify information ingestion, governance, and analysis.
Use caseA data engineer links datasets to OneLake so all business units share a single source of truth.
From microsoft.com
Written from Microsoft Power BI's own website, checked . Each feature links to the page it comes from; images are Microsoft Power BI's own.
Every plan
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Per | What it includes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Not listed | per user | Power BI Desktop authoring, no sharing, no Copilot |
| Power BI Pro | Not listed | $14 | per user | Publish/share, 1 GB model, 8 refreshes/day, 10 GB storage; no Copilot on its own |
| Premium Per User | Not listed | $24 | per user | 100 GB model, 48 refreshes/day; no Copilot on its own |
| Power BI Embedded | Not listed | Not listed | capacity | contact sales / variable |
| Fabric Capacity (reservation or pay as you go) | Not listed | Not listed | capacity | Variable pricing; Copilot in Fabric included; Copilot needs paid F2+ or P1+ capacity |
From Microsoft Power BI (Copilot)'s own pricing page, checked . Prices are in US dollars per month; "billed yearly" is the monthly price when you pay for a year up front. A few figures (often the yearly price) are derived rather than printed on the page.
Before you pay
- Card needed for the trial
- No
- Trains on your data
- No
What Microsoft Power BI says
Your data isn't used to train models and isn't available to other customers.
Source page - Data retention
- Prompt related data is no longer retained or stored for abuse monitoring.
What Microsoft Power BI says
Following customer feedback, we've eliminated this 30 day retention. Now, we no longer store prompt related data, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to your privacy and security.
Source page
Only what Microsoft Power BI's own pages state, with the quote behind each answer. Anything they don't publish is left out rather than guessed.
Getting started with Microsoft Power BI
- Go to the Fabric Admin portal directly or by selecting the Settings gear icon in the upper right of the Power BI service.
- Select Tenant settings from the Admin portal for Fabric.
- Review the configuration within the 'Users can use Copilot and other features powered by Azure OpenAI' setting.
- Specify who can access Copilot in Fabric in the Applies to section.
- Select Apply to save your changes.
Written from Microsoft Power BI's own help pages: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-rep...
Microsoft Power BI video tutorials
Independent creators on YouTube, not Microsoft Power BI or us. The video loads from YouTube only when you press play.
What the free plan includes
Free account: build reports in Power BI Desktop; no sharing; no Copilot
Questions people ask about Microsoft Power BI
Is Microsoft Power BI free?
Yes, there is a free plan: Free account: build reports in Power BI Desktop; no sharing; no Copilot.
Does Microsoft Power BI train its AI on my data?
No, the company says your data is not used for training. Source
Do I need a credit card to try Microsoft Power BI?
No, you can start without a credit card. Source
Does Microsoft Power BI have an API?
Yes.
Can Copilot be enabled for specific workspaces within a tenant?
Copilot is enabled at the tenant level and access can be restricted by security groups. If the workspace is tied to an F2 or P1 capacity, Copilot experience will be enabled. Source
When you're using Copilot, who has access to what data?
Access depends on role level security and user based permissions in Fabric; users cannot prompt Copilot to retrieve data they lack permission to access. Source
Can Copilot prompts be saved for future reference?
Copilot prompts cannot be saved for future reference, with the notebook chat magic function being the only experience where viewing prompts is possible. Source
Is Copilot supported on trial SKUs?
No, Copilot in Microsoft Fabric is not supported on trial SKUs; only paid SKUs (F2 or higher, or P1 or higher) are supported. Source
Works with
- AI models
- Azure OpenAI Service, OpenAI
- Languages
- English works best; other languages might not perform as well
Where this came from
Plans, prices and limits were copied from Microsoft Power BI (Copilot)'s own pages and the other sources listed, then checked .
- microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-bi/pricing
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/copilot-enable-power-bi
- microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-bi
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/fundamentals/copilot-privacy-security
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/fundamentals/copilot-faq-fabric
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/fundamentals/copilot-fabric-overview
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/copilot-introduct...
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/power-bi-copilot/?source...
- learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/enterprise/licenses
How we collect prices and rank tools · Is something wrong? Correct this listing
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