Microsoft Fabric explained: what it changes for Power BI teams

Microsoft Fabric is Microsoft’s data and analytics platform that brings data engineering, warehousing, real-time analytics and Power BI together on one shared store called OneLake. For Power BI teams, the main changes are that Premium capacity is now bought as Fabric F capacity, AI features such as Copilot and data agents run on that capacity, and semantic models become the business layer that AI assistants read through Fabric IQ.

What is Microsoft Fabric?

Microsoft Fabric is a software-as-a-service analytics platform. It combines tools that used to be separate products, including Data Factory for moving data, lakehouses and warehouses for storing and shaping it, real-time intelligence for streaming data, data science notebooks and Power BI for reports. All of them read and write to one store called OneLake, so teams do not keep a separate copy of the same data for each tool.

Power BI did not go away. It became one of the workloads inside Fabric, and the way you buy larger Power BI deployments changed with it.

What changes for Power BI teams?

How you buy capacity: Premium P SKUs are no longer sold to new customers. Larger deployments buy Fabric F capacity instead.
Who needs a licence: On F64 and above, people who only view reports do not need their own Pro licence. Below F64, they still do.
Where AI runs: Copilot in Power BI and Fabric data agents need F2 or larger capacity.
Where data lives: Models can read from lakehouses through Direct Lake mode instead of importing copies.
Who you work with: Data engineers and report authors share one workspace model, so ownership needs to be agreed.

How is Fabric priced?

Per-user Power BI licences still exist: Pro is $14 and Premium Per User $24 per user per month, paid yearly. Fabric capacity is priced per hour and billed per second, and can be paused or reserved for a lower rate. Published examples put an F64 at about $8,400 a month on pay-as-you-go in a US region, or about $5,000 a month with a one-year reservation. Check the Fabric pricing page for your region before budgeting.

The break-even point depends on how many people only view reports. Our guide to what a Power BI dashboard project costs works through typical setups.

What are Fabric IQ and data agents?

Fabric IQ is the layer that gives AI assistants business context: what a customer, an order or a branch means in your organisation. It is built on Power BI semantic models and, in preview, ontologies that describe entities and rules. Microsoft announced at FabCon Europe in September 2026 that Fabric IQ is generally available in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Cowork, and that the Fabric IQ MCP server is generally available, so external AI tools can query governed data. Data agents let teams publish a question-answering agent over chosen tables and models.

This makes the semantic model more important than ever. A well-defined model now serves reports, Copilot and agents at the same time. If you are new to the protocol behind the MCP server, read what MCP is.

Do you need Fabric if you only use Power BI?

Many organisations start in the middle: Pro licences for authors and a small capacity for AI and the heaviest models, then grow capacity as usage proves itself.

How should you plan a move to Fabric?

List what you have: Workspaces, models, refresh schedules, gateways and who reads what.
Agree ownership: Decide who owns lakehouses, models and reports, and who approves changes.
Start with one domain: Move one area, such as finance or service operations, end to end.
Size and monitor capacity: Use the capacity metrics app before buying a reservation.
Set governance early: Workspaces, sensitivity labels and row-level security before you open access.

A real example: Omantel’s service reporting brought incidents, service levels, customer satisfaction and workload into one Power BI suite. A shared platform makes that kind of consolidation easier to keep tidy as new reports are added.

How UIUX Studio helps

We help teams plan Fabric and Power BI setups, design the semantic model and build the reports people use every day. See our Technology Advisory service, or read about Copilot in Power BI and Power BI governance.

Frequently asked questions

Is Power BI part of Microsoft Fabric?

Yes. Power BI is one of the workloads inside Fabric.

Are Premium P SKUs still sold?

No. New capacity is bought as Fabric F SKUs.

Do viewers need Pro on Fabric?

Not on F64 or larger. On smaller capacities they still do.

What is OneLake?

Fabric’s single shared data store for all workloads.

Can I pause Fabric capacity?

Yes. Pay-as-you-go capacity can be paused when not needed.