Power BI Update - January 2026

0:00 (calm music)- New year, new features,

0:05 and this month is all about working smarter,

0:08 smarter AI experiences, smoother reporting workflows,

0:11 and fewer why did my report just do that moments.

0:15 Before we get into all of the great information,

0:17 I wanna remind you that the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference

0:21 and the Microsoft SQL Community Conference are coming in March 2026 in Atlanta.

0:26 Scan that QR code on the screen to learn more and sign up.

0:30 We'd love for you to register, learn new things, and connect with the community.

0:35 And you can use the discount code FABCOMM,

0:38 F-A-B-C-O-M-M, to get $200 off registration.

0:43 All right, back to the update.

0:44 For all the details for this month, you'll see a QR code on screen as well.

0:49 Scan that to jump directly to the monthly update blog.

0:53 Right now, I wanna hit the highlights and give you a few demos.

0:57 I'm Adam Saxton.

0:58 This is the Microsoft Power BI update for January 2026.

1:02 Let's begin.

1:03 For general availability items, this month,

1:06 the modern visual tooltips are officially generally available.

1:10 These aren't just prettier tooltips.

1:12 They're more interactive, so drill down, drill up,

1:15 or drill through directly from the tooltip,

1:18 automatically match your report themes,

1:20 and reduce right-click hunting for your users.

1:24 If your reports are meant to be explored, this is a big upgrade.

1:28 Now let's talk about what's new or evolving,

1:30 even if it doesn't all land under a single preview banner.

1:35 We're continuing to invest heavily in Copilot,

1:37 and January brings some important changes.

1:40 There's a new Copilot tooling format for Prep data for AI.

1:43 It's Git-friendly, easier to understand and decouples

1:47 Copilot from the legacy Q&A experience.

1:49 Speaking of which, the Power BI Q&A and the legacy

1:53 Excel CSV import experience are scheduled for deprecation in 2026.

1:59 Copilot is the future here,

2:00 and these changes help make that transition cleaner and more powerful.

2:04 You'll also see the Prepped for AI setting renamed to Approved for Copilot,

2:09 the ability to attach reports or semantic models directly to Copilot chat,

2:14 including on mobile, and a new standalone Copilot entry point coming

2:19 to the Power BI Home experience later this month.

2:22 Bottom line, Copilot is becoming more intentional, more discoverable,

2:26 and more aligned with how teams actually work.

2:29 Let's talk about reporting enhancements.

2:31 January is a great month for report authors.

2:33 Field parameters now let you choose

2:36 whether hierarchy levels stay expanded or collapsed.

2:39 We've got some Format pane improvements,

2:41 including better color pickers and a granular Reset to default option.

2:46 Azure Maps gets new marker capabilities for richer geospatial storytelling,

2:51 and tables and matrices now default to more compact,

2:55 content-driven column sizing.

2:57 These are the kind of updates that don't scream,

3:00 but they quietly save you time every single day.

3:03 A couple of important modeling updates to call out.

3:05 You can now edit semantic models with incremental

3:08 refresh directly in the Power BI service,

3:11 and Power BI now supports China's GB18030-2022,

3:17 say that three times fast, character set standards,

3:20 helping ensure global compliance and correct Unicode behavior.

3:24 Not flashy, but absolutely critical if you're operating at scale.

3:28 All right, enough of all my talking.

3:29 Let's check out some demos.

3:32 [Jeroen] Here I have two reports that show

3:34 exactly the same information and the same visuals.

3:36 They have a matrix showing total sales by product group and year,

3:40 the field parameter that is switched between Category, Class, and Color.

3:44 Right now, Category's selected and I've expanded the hierarchy,

3:47 so we can see the sales broken down by year.

3:49 Now let's change the field parameter from Category

3:51 to Class in a report on the left, which shows our default behavior.

3:55 Notice how the matrix stays expanded, the Year column remains visible.

3:59 This is the default behavior with persist hierarchy level turned on.

4:02 Some users prefer the earlier behavior where

4:05 the matrix collapses when the field parameter changes.

4:07 Go to Options and Settings, Options, Current File, Report Settings,

4:12 and then under Field parameter options, turn off Persist hierarchy level.

4:15 So when I switch from Category to Class,

4:18 the matrix collapses automatically, showing only the Class totals.

4:24 [Jacinda] Modern tooltips have an actions footer to allow for drill

4:26 down or up and drill through without requiring an extra right-click.

4:30 Simply locate the specific value and hover

4:33 for the tooltip and actions footer to appear, and then click on the action.

4:37 For example, I want to drill through on USA to see its by-country drill through.

4:42 I can also drill down on specific points,

4:44 like if I wanna see the month per month trend for 2021 in profits.

4:49 I can click on the drill down to interact with this hierarchy.

4:53 If I prefer to not have the actions footer show,

4:56 I can also go to the Format pane and turn it off.

5:00 I select my visual, I go to the General tab,

5:03 and I go to tooltips, and I can turn off this toggle for Actions.

5:08 And now when I hover over a specific point, the footer no longer shows.

5:13 In addition, the color of the tooltip is reflected based on the theme.

5:16 As I change the theme,

5:18 the color of the background and the text in the tooltip can also change.

5:21 For example, I select a custom theme,

5:24 and now when I hover over a specific point,

5:27 the tooltip now has a light gray background to match the rest of the theme.

5:31 This can also be customized further using the Text

5:34 and the Background card in the Format pane.

5:39 [Harleen] Suppose you want to show airplane

5:41 headings around Seattle area on Azure Map.

5:43 Go to the Visualization pane and select Azure Map visual.

5:46 Add latitude and longitude data, which represents the location of the airplanes.

5:51 Go to the Format pane and then to Markers.

5:54 You can select if you want to show

5:55 location using any built in icon or custom images.

5:59 If you select Image, you can either paste public URL that has

6:02 your custom images or use conditional formatting to show images.

6:06 Let's choose airplane icon to represent location of the airplanes.

6:10 You can adjust the size of the icons using the slider.

6:12 You can also change the rotation of these icons,

6:15 or you can use FX to use pre-computed rotation value for each icon.

6:20 For example, airplane location table includes a column called Headings,

6:24 which describe direction of the airplane headings.

6:26 Select this column and click OK.

6:29 You will see the airplane icons rotated according to their heading direction,

6:32 hence enhancing data-driven storytelling.

6:35 Hopefully those demos gave you a good feel for what's

6:38 new and maybe sparked an idea or two for your reports.

6:41 Now, one of my favorite parts of the month, each month,

6:44 we love to recognize someone who's making

6:46 a real impact in the Power BI community.

6:49 This month, we're spotlighting Taylor Amy.

6:52 Taylor joined the Power BI community in 2025, and in a short time,

6:57 has earned 600-plus Kudos, authored 370-plus solutions,

7:02 and contributed over 1,100 replies.

7:05 And when he's not helping folks in the forums,

7:07 Taylor mentors middle and high school students

7:10 in robotics through the FIRST Tech Challenge.

7:13 Taylor, thank you for your generosity, your expertise,

7:16 and for making the community better for everyone.

7:19 You heard the highlights, you saw the demos, what are you most excited about?

7:23 What else do you want to see?

7:24 Drop them in the comments below.

7:26 We'd love to hear what you think.

7:28 For all the details, again, scan that QR code on screen or hit the link

7:31 in the description below to check out the monthly update blog.

7:34 Don't forget to join the Microsoft Fabric Community to connect,

7:37 learn, and share your own fabric journey.

7:40 I hope to see you at FABCON and SQLCON in March.

7:43 Thanks for watching, keep being awesome, and we'll see you in the next video.