How to Use Copilot in Power BI
Copilot in Power BI is an AI assistant built into the Power BI Service and Desktop that can summarise report pages, generate new visuals based on your prompt, suggest DAX measures, and answer questions about your data in plain language. It requires a Microsoft Fabric or Power BI Premium licence and must be enabled by your Fabric administrator. You access it via the Copilot button in the report toolbar.
Copilot in Power BI uses AI to help you summarise reports, create visuals, and answer data questions in plain language, without writing DAX or clicking through menus.
What Copilot Can Do in Power BI
Copilot in Power BI has four main capabilities. First, it can summarise a report page: it reads the visuals and generates a written overview of the key findings, which is useful for executive summaries or when you want to quickly understand what a report shows. Second, it can create new visuals based on a prompt: describe the chart you want, and Copilot builds it. Third, it can help you write DAX measures by describing the calculation in plain language. Fourth, it can answer ad-hoc questions about your data using the Q&A engine, letting you query the dataset without building a visual first.
Requirements Before You Start
Copilot requires a Microsoft Fabric capacity (F64 or higher) or a Power BI Premium Per User licence. Standard Power BI Pro does not include Copilot. The capacity must run in a supported Azure region; not all regions have Copilot available yet. Your Fabric administrator must also explicitly enable Copilot in the Tenant Settings of the Admin Portal. If the Copilot button does not appear in your Power BI interface, check these requirements first.
How to Activate and Open Copilot
Once your administrator has enabled Copilot and you have a qualifying licence, you access it through the Copilot button in the Power BI ribbon. The button appears both in the Power BI Service and in Power BI Desktop. Clicking it opens a side pane with a chat interface. You type your prompt there and Copilot responds. The conversation is context-aware: Copilot knows which report page you have open and which dataset it is connected to.
Limitations to Be Aware Of
Copilot works best with well-structured datasets. If your columns have technical names or your measures lack descriptions, Copilot may misinterpret your prompts. Generated visuals are a starting point, not a finished product: always review formatting, axis labels, and filter behaviour before sharing with stakeholders. Copilot cannot access data outside the current dataset; if you ask about information from a different report or system, it will not have that context. For background on what Power BI is and how it fits into Microsoft’s ecosystem, see What is Power BI.
Our tip: Before using Copilot to generate visuals, rename your table and column names to be human-readable in Power Query. Columns named “col_rev_usd_ytd” will confuse Copilot; “Revenue USD Year-to-Date” will not.
Frequently asked questions
Does Copilot in Power BI require a special licence?
Yes. Copilot in Power BI requires either a Microsoft Fabric capacity of F64 or higher, or a Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) licence. A standard Power BI Pro licence is not sufficient for Copilot. The capacity or workspace must also be in an Azure region where Microsoft has made Copilot available. Your Fabric or Power BI administrator controls which users can access the feature through Tenant Settings.
Can Copilot answer questions about my actual data values?
Copilot can answer questions about the data visible in the report visuals and can use Q&A features to query the underlying dataset. However, its ability to answer precise data questions depends on how well your data model is structured and whether Q&A is configured. For best results, ensure your table and column names are descriptive and that you have set up synonyms in the Q&A settings of your dataset.
Does Copilot write DAX measures automatically?
Copilot can suggest DAX measures based on a description you provide. In Power BI Desktop, you can describe what you want to calculate and Copilot will write a DAX expression. This is useful for getting a starting point, but you should always review the generated DAX before using it in a production report. Complex calculations involving filter context or time intelligence may require manual refinement.
Is my data sent to Microsoft when I use Copilot?
Copilot in Power BI processes your prompts and data through Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Your data does not leave the Microsoft 365 compliance boundary. Microsoft states that your data is not used to train the underlying AI models. For organisations with strict data residency requirements, check whether your Fabric capacity region matches your data residency policy before enabling Copilot.