What is Power BI

Definition

Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence platform for connecting to data, building interactive reports and dashboards, and sharing insights, and within Microsoft Fabric it serves as the native visualisation layer over OneLake data through semantic models and Direct Lake mode.

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Turns data into interactive reports and dashboards for decision-makers
Connects natively to Fabric OneLake data via semantic models
Enables self-service analytics with a familiar, widely adopted tool
Shares insights securely across the organisation

Real World Example

A sales team builds a Power BI dashboard on a Fabric semantic model that updates from OneLake, letting managers explore performance by region interactively and drill into the underlying figures themselves.

FAQs

What is Power BI used for?

Connecting to data and building interactive reports and dashboards that let users explore and share insights.

How does Power BI fit into Fabric?

It is Fabric's native BI layer, reporting over OneLake data through semantic models and Direct Lake mode.

What is Direct Lake mode in Power BI?

A Fabric storage mode where Power BI reads Delta tables directly from OneLake for fast performance without importing data.