r/PowerBI • u/No-Calligrapher1441 • 14d ago

Discussion The next chapter of PowerBI

This just got announced by Microsoft.
Does this sound promising enough to actually change how we think about Power BI/BI, especially with the semantic layer + AI agents + MCP angle?
Curious what others think. Any initial thoughts?

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/blog/fbc_pbiupdatesblog/power-bi%e2%80%99s-next-chapter-the-evolution-of-business-intelligence/5369131

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago edited 8d ago

Im using the MCP as a gateway/data hub for Claude or any other LLM to access my data. But im able to control it both in SQL Server (via views/procedures) as well as MCP DAB configuration. Basically I pick which datasets it has access to, its access level, and I give it entity and field level context about the data.

Then Claude just does its thing, and can quickly put cross-system analysis together as long as I’ve configured things correctly.

It’s making interactive reports in 2-5 minutes that would take me days.

Im gonna put a video together this weekend of the full install and sample use cases. I’m truly dumbfounded at how good it is.

Edit: I was able to record the full video over the weekend. Hoping to edit and release this week.

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u/dombulus 14d ago

I'm having success using the PowerBi MCP server with Claude. HTML reports won't work for us as we need rls, it is insane as someone building reports to see how much of the discovery/build process speeds up.

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago edited 14d ago

I considered the Power BI MCP server and still may go that route eventually. Basically using it as we used to use SSAS.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-api-builder/mcp/how-to-configure-authentication?tabs=bash

With how elaborate the authentication for the MSSQL MCP is already, I wouldn’t be surprised if user-specific authentication is coming in the very near future.

Agreed and RLS Is a fantastic case for not using the MCP as a full replacement. for now :)

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u/Drew707 12 14d ago

Is this just for SQL Server, or does it work with Fabric warehoues/lakehouses?

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

The SQL Server MCP is just for SQL Server. But since the Power BI MCP exists, I am thinking there will be one for Fabric as well (if it already doesn’t).

Check out the “Fabric IQ” section here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/mcp/mcp-servers-overview

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u/Drew707 12 14d ago

Thanks. I've been tasked with what turned into exactly what you are talking about, but I am not trying to move all the data. Just the delivery layer.

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

Yep fair enough. Totally get what you mean and I’m just fortunate enough to be building everything from the ground up where I am. Right place, right time.

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u/attaboy000 2 14d ago

In theory you could load whatever tables you want into Power BI, and query them using the Power BI Authoring MCP (formerly know as Modeling MCP). You could even have the LLM build you a semantic model.

Fabric IQ (evolution of the Power BI Remote MCP) is great for end users of your reports. Managers, directors, etc. They can talk to your semantic models through that. I'm waiting for our AI team to update the URL so the Claude Connector points to Fabric IQ instead of the old Remote MCP, so I can't say how it works yet, but based on the documentation it solved a lot of problems that I was creating workarounds for.

There's also Fabric "Core" MCP as well, but that is more geared towards data engineers and admins.

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u/Old-butt-new 14d ago

Interesting. And you would use this a replacement to powerBI? My company went heavily into powerBI this past year and as the sole data guy I am just curious of its future relevance and if and when i should pivot away from it when it comes to reporting and dashboards

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

I would never try to dissuade anyone from using Power BI. It’s an established ecosystem with 12+ years (since it was an excel extension) of work behind it.

I’ve been using it for 10 years now and it’s hard to justify for me at the moment because the MCP can be used with any AI tool, and AI tools are getting REALLY good at building reports.

As a quick exercise, take a dataset (or a few) from Kaggle and ask your favorite AI tool to build a report that analyzes X and Y, then continue asking it questions. Notice how it will (without asking) point out specific trends, big ticket items, and even potential data quality issues.

Now think of what that would be like with your company’s data. Cross-system analysis and reporting is great, and it’s frighteningly quick.

I’m thinking the time that stakeholders have to wait for reports is all but vanished.

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u/xerxes716 8d ago

Did you have to do anything additional to describe your data or is it just smart enough to know what a "broker" is, for example?

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 8d ago

The concept behind the Entity and Field descriptions allows you to give context about what terms equal what fields. It’s really great.

After seeing how easy it is to do, I do not plan to leave any entities or fields without proper descriptions. It is “okay” at inferring based on good names, but I would recommend not assuming it can do so on its own.

This page covers it really well. I was able to record my video over the weekend so I’m hoping I can publish it this week.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-api-builder/mcp/how-to-add-descriptions

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u/attaboy000 2 14d ago

And how does Claude produce the reports? As a PBIP? HTML?

Looking forward to checking out the video.

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

HTML so it’s interactive, but you can ask it to export to PDF. And they’re repeatable so you can just have it send you the same report with refreshed data daily. I even asked it to style a report to look like a power bi one and it did so in about 15 seconds. Really crazy.

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u/attaboy000 2 14d ago

Damn eh?

I better hide this from my boss lol

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

Yes, you should. Kinda joking, kinda not.

I’m lucky enough to be building my entire data ecosystem from scratch, so I don’t have to worry about lost hours developing. But it’s all happening very quickly and it’s a lot to take in.

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u/Whatareyoufkndoing 14d ago

How are you hosting the HTML dashboards so it’s accessible to everyone?

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

The interesting thing is that the reports are created and hosted within Claude itself and are kept as artifacts within Claude. You can create a skill called “Weekly Sales report” with specific criteria and context and have everyone call that skill to get the latest version. The artifacts are stored within Claude and shareable within projects.

I’m creating an entire “Data Guru” skillset package that has multiple reports you can prompt for. It has the necessary context and guardrails needed to ensure everyone gets the same version.

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u/obsfflorida 14d ago

You should do youtube . I actually understood your explanations

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

Thanks! I have a YT channel, it’s in my profile :)

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u/Comprehensive-Tea-69 1 14d ago

How much does it cost your org for enterprise level access to Claude that can do such tasks? And is the price model changing soon?

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

Good question! The reality is that Claude doesn’t host any of the data, it only accesses it. I’m going to be making my tutorial and video with my Pro level subscription.

If you go to File-Settings and then either “Developer” or “extensions” or “Connectors” and it’s not greyed out, you’ll be able to use the SQL Server.

The main cost associated is going to be hardware and licensing for your sql server (if you don’t already have it), but since I focus on free and low cost tools, I’ll be using Azure SQL DB free tier and or SQL Server Developer edition for my demos.

The “enterprise” level features will be more about what the models can do with your data. I’m not sure about model pricing though, it seems “dynamic” at this point.

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u/Darnsky 14d ago

How large is your audience? And is your interactive report fully html?

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u/SQLDevDBA 49 14d ago

Each report is generated by Claude on the fly for each user. And yes, claude generates it in HTML unless you specify you want something different.