Power BI's Copilot Feature

Introduction

In the realm of data analysis and visualization, Power BI has established itself as a powerhouse tool, empowering users to transform raw data into insightful visuals effortlessly. However, the latest addition to its arsenal, the Copilot feature, takes this capability to a whole new level. 

Copilot is not just another feature; it's your personal data assistant within Power BI. Powered by advanced AI and natural language processing, Copilot is designed to understand your queries and assist you in generating insights and crafting visualizations quickly and intuitively. Imagine having a conversation with your data. With Copilot, you can simply type or speak your questions in natural language, and it will understand your intent, offering suggestions and recommendations in real-time.

Copilot requirements : 

1. Your administrator must enable Copilot in Microsoft Fabric.

2. Ensure that your tenant switch is enabled before using Copilot.

3. Your F64 or P1 capacity should be in one of the regions listed for Fabric region availability.

4. If your capacity isn’t in the specified regions, Copilot won’t be available.

5. The tenant switch must be enabled before you start using Copilot.

6. If your tenant or capacity is outside the US or France, Copilot is disabled by default. However, your Fabric tenant admin can enable data processing outside your tenant’s geographic region.

• The first time you select the Copilot ribbon button, a dialog will prompt you to pick a Copilot compatible workspace. Select any workspace assigned to the required capacity.

• Once you land on the Copilot pane, a welcome card will appear. Select “Get started” to start your interaction with the Copilot.

• Once you’ve successfully completed the above steps, you won’t be asked to connect to a workspace again. You can change the associated workspace in Options & Settings > Options > Copilot (preview).

Feature overview: Copilot capabilities

You can interact with Copilot in several different ways in Power BI. The main and most obvious way is to open the Copilot pane and ask Copilot to create a report page, or a summary of a page. Copilot can also create a narrative visual that summarizes a page or a whole report. And Copilot can generate synonyms for Q&A, to help your report readers find what they're looking for in your reports.

1) Summary of your report in the Copilot pane -  You may quickly get an overview of the data in your Power BI semantic model with the use of Copilot. This summary can assist you in understanding the data in your model, spotting significant discoveries, and enhancing the data exploration process. In the end, this can assist you in creating reports with greater relevance.

2) Suggest Content for a Report - Copilot can help you get started on a new report by suggesting topics based on your data. By selecting this option directly in the chat, Copilot will evaluate the data and provide a report outline with suggested pages that you can explore and choose to create for you.

3) Create a report page - Copilot for Power BI can help you get started by identifying the tables, fields, measures, and charts you need to create a report page. You can save time and effort by providing Copilot with a high-level prompt that is unique to your data, and it will build a personalized report page that you can change using their pre-existing editing experiences. 

4) Narrative Visual - With Copilot, you can create a visual that generates a text summary of the data visualized in your report canvas. The visual offers suggested prompts, and a space that allows you to direct the summary for your specific needs, offering an easy to read, useful guide for the end user. The summary updates in keeping with slicers and filters, and as the data refreshes. 

5) Write  DAX queries - Copilot can write a DAX query. For example, you can type in a prompt to describe what DAX query you would like it to generate, and select Send or press Enter. To run what is returned, select Keep it to add it to query tab. Then select Run or press F5 to see the results of the DAX query. 

limitations

1. AI may generate content that contains mistakes. Make sure it's accurate and appropriate before using it.

2. You can't tell Copilot which kind of visual to create.

3. Copilot can't modify the visuals after it has generated them.

4. Copilot can't add filters or set slicers if you specify them in the prompts. For example, if you say: "Create a sales report for the last 30 days," Copilot can't interpret 30 days as a date filter.

5. Copilot can't make layout changes. For example, if you tell Copilot to resize the visuals, or to align all the visuals perfectly, it won't work.

6. Copilot can't understand complex intent. For example, suppose you frame a prompt like: "Generate a report to show incidents by team, incident type, and owner of the incident, and do this for only 30 days." This prompt is complex, and Copilot will probably generate irrelevant visuals.

7. Copilot doesn't produce a message for the skills that it doesn't support. For example, if you ask Copilot to edit or add a slicer, it doesn't complete the instruction successfully, as mentioned above. Unfortunately, it doesn't give an error message either.

Conclusion :

With Copilot, Power BI continues to push the boundaries of what's possible in data analysis and visualization. By combining the power of AI with intuitive design, Copilot revolutionizes the way we interact with data, making advanced analytics accessible to everyone. So, why not let Copilot be your guide on your next data journey? 

Reference :  Overview of Copilot for Power BI (preview) - Power BI | Microsoft Learn 

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