Build 2023: Microsoft unveils Fabric, a unified data analytics platform integrated with Power BI

Microsoft on Tuesday evening launched Microsoft Fabric, a unified end-to-end data and analytics platform that integrates technologies like Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Power BI into a single unified product.

Microsoft said that Fabric will empower data and business professionals alike to unlock the potential of their data and lay the foundation for the era of AI.

The new platform centers around Microsoft’s OneLake data lake, but can also pull in data from Amazon S3 and will soon be able to work with Google Cloud Platform as well. It includes everything from integration tools, a Spark-based data engineering platform, a real-time analytics platform and, an easy-to-use visualization and AI-based analytics tool.

"Fabric is the biggest AI product we have built," Satya Nadella in his keynote address at the conference. 

Fabric will also be integerated with AI Copilot. It will also ensure a no-code experience that would allow users to monitor their data in real time and trigger actions and notifications based on it.

The company also said, Fabric with Azure OpenAI Service at every layer is to help customers unlock the full potential of their data, enabling developers to leverage the power of generative AI against their data and assisting business users to find insights in their data.

With Copilot in Microsoft Fabric, users can also use the conversational language to create dataflows and data pipelines, generate code and entire functions, build machine learning models, or visualize results. Customers can even create their own conversational language experiences that combine Azure OpenAI Service models and their data and publish them as plug-ins, the company further said.

According to Microsoft, Power BI is a core part of Fabric and is already infused across Microsoft 365. Through Power BI’s deep integrations with popular applications such as Excel, Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, and SharePoint, relevant data from OneLake is easily discoverable and accessible to users right from Microsoft 365.

Users in Microsoft Excel can directly discover and analyze data in OneLake and generate a Power BIreport, the company said.

In Teams, users can infuse data into their everyday work with embedded channels, chat, and meeting experiences. Business users can bring data into their presentations by embedding live Power BI reports directly in Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft said.
 

Read: Microsoft Build 2023: New AI tools, plugins and integration of Bing and ChatGPT