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Consume a Fabric data agent from Copilot in Power BI (preview)

By using Copilot in Power BI, you can ask natural language questions while viewing reports and get answers from items you can access across Microsoft Fabric. Use Copilot from the Copilot pane or the standalone Copilot experience; this feature doesn't add a visual to the report canvas. Copilot helps you stay focused on insight extraction without switching between Microsoft Fabric items.

Fabric data agents integrate seamlessly across the Microsoft ecosystem, enabling consumption from Copilot in Power BI, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and through Model Context Protocol (MCP) server endpoints.

Important

This feature is in preview.

Prerequisites

  • General Copilot requirements
  • Open a report in the Power BI service or Power BI Desktop and open the Copilot pane, or access the standalone Copilot experience from the Copilot icon in the left navigation or from the Power BI Home page

You can consume a Microsoft Fabric data agent directly within Copilot in Power BI in two ways:

Use Copilot search to find and invoke a Fabric data agent

When you ask a question in Copilot in Power BI, it

  • scans all available items you have permissions to access
    • Power BI semantic models
    • Power BI reports
    • Fabric data agents
  • ranks and suggests the most relevant items based on your query
  • offers suggested items to help you choose the most appropriate answer source

The following screenshot shows answers a Copilot in Power BI query might return:

Screenshot showing answers that a Copilot in Power BI query might return.

The following screenshot shows data that a Copilot in Power BI query might return:

Screenshot showing data that a Copilot in Power BI query might return.

Directly add a Fabric data agent

If you know which data agent to use, add that data agent to the Copilot session. Select Add items for better results, and then select Data agents. The OneLake catalog opens and lists all data agents you have permission to access. Copilot uses the selected data agent for relevant follow-up questions, as shown in the following screenshot:

Screenshot that shows attachment of an item to Copilot in Power BI.

After you select an item, you attach that item to your question. Then, Copilot in Power BI uses the added item to retrieve the answer to the question, as shown in the following screenshot:

Screenshot showing data agent is attached to the copilot in power bi.

Copilot might not return a useful answer to a question outside the scope of the data agent you added. When you change topics, tell Copilot so it can perform a new search across these resources: Power BI semantic models, Power BI reports, and Fabric data agents.

Interaction flow with a Fabric data agent

When you select a Fabric data agent, Copilot in Power BI proceeds with these steps to retrieve an answer:

  1. Rephrase the question: Copilot in Power BI might rephrase a question to fit the context or improve clarity, based on the conversation.
  2. Send the query: Copilot in Power BI sends the question to the selected Fabric data agent.
  3. Fabric data agent answer retrieval: The data agent identifies the most relevant data source (lakehouse, warehouse, semantic model, KQL database, ontology, or Azure AI Search index) and queries that data source. Data security protocols, such as row-level security (RLS) and column-level security (CLS), are enforced based on user permissions.
  4. Response delivery: The Fabric data agent sends the answer back to Copilot in Power BI.
  5. Final user presentation: Copilot in Power BI presents the answer directly to the user in the conversation interface.

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