IMPORTANT NOTE: The January Power BI Desktop release began rolling out today (1/20). Updates may take time to reflect in the desktop release. Please allow some time as all updates may not be available immediately.
The January 2026 Power BI Feature Summary is packed with exciting news—there are fresh updates, important announcements, and some big changes, especially around upcoming events, feature retirements, and the latest in AI and Copilot advancements.
Some of the standout features include new reporting tools, smarter data modeling options, enhanced resources for developers, broader global standards support and upgraded visualizations. With these improvements, Power BI is making analytics easier to use, helping you work more efficiently, and connecting all your tools even better than before.
FabCon Atlanta is fast approaching! If you’re looking for more details, check out the Events & Announcements section. We hope you’ll join us!
Contents
Check out the January Power BI video
Events & Announcements
Could you be the next Power BI Dataviz World Champion?
There’s only one way to find out! By joining this global contest, you will have the opportunity to tackle three weekly challenges designed to stretch visualization skills and inspire innovation. Four finalists will be selected to compete for the title of world champion LIVE on stage at FabCon Atlanta.
Learn more about how to enter and view the entries from the first week, happening now.
Two months until FabCon – will we see you there?
Join us for the ultimate Power BI, Microsoft Fabric SQL, Real-Time Intelligence, AI, and Databases community-led event from March 16-20, 2026, in Atlanta, GA. The third annual FabCon Americas will feature sessions from your favorite Microsoft and community speakers, keynotes, more opportunities to Ask the Experts for 1:1 support, an engaging community lounge with opportunities to network and connect with your peers, a dedicated partner pre-day, a packed expo hall, attendee favorites Power Hour and the Data Viz World Championships live finals, and a can’t-miss attendee party at the Georgia Aquarium.
Register with code FABCOMM to save $200.
General
Deprecation of Power BI Q&A
Q&A, our legacy natural language tool, will be deprecated in December 2026. Moving forward, use Power BI Copilot, which provides a more advanced and integrated solution for querying data with natural language.
For more details and recommended alternatives, refer to the blog post on Deprecating Power BI Q&A.
SQL Server Reporting Services Report Viewer Web Part Support Discontinuation
Support for SSRS SharePoint Webpart, a component that allows you to embed on-prem paginated reports directly into SharePoint Server pages, will end on April 13, 2026. While the download will continue to be available, there will be no future updates for this component.
For more information and recommended alternatives, refer to SSRS SharePoint Webpart documentation.
The Power BI application is accessible within Teams on Microsoft 365 Operated by 21Vianet
Users can acquire the Power BI app from the app store, or admins can centrally install it for them. Once added, users can view their Power BI content in Teams using the app, and pin Power BI items to chats or channels using Tabs.
The following features are not supported in the Power BI app for Teams operated by 21Vianet environment:
- Power BI notifications in Microsoft Teams
- Power BI preview cards
Please also refer to the service description of Power BI in 21Vianet: Power BI operated by 21Vianet in China. For installation instructions, please refer to: Add the Power BI app to Microsoft Teams.
Copilot and AI
Attach reference to Copilot chat in the Power BI mobile app
In certain situations, you may know precisely which item you want Copilot to reference when generating its response. For those cases, we added the ability to attach a Report or Semantic model to Copilot chat as a grounded reference. To add a reference, tap the + icon or type / to search and select an item. The selected item appears in the chat Copilot uses it to ground its answers.
Updating Prepped for AI setting name to Approved for Copilot
In May 2025, we launched the capability to mark a model as prepped for AI. The name of this setting has been updated to “approved for Copilot”.
Enabling this setting in a semantic model applies three main functionalities:
- The standalone Copilot agent doesn’t apply friction treatment to answers from that model.
- Authors can turn on the admin setting to only show approved items in the standalone Copilot experience.
- Models marked as approved for AI are boosted in the Copilot search experience.
After you prepare your semantic model for AI and it’s ready for consumption, you can mark your model Approved for Copilot by following these steps:
- Navigate to the Power BI service and find your semantic model.
- Select the Settings icon in the upper left corner.
- Expand the Approved Copilot section.
- Select the Approved Copilot box, and then select the Apply button.
Standalone Copilot Access on Power BI Home
Introducing a new Standalone Copilot entry point right on the Power BI Home page! This update brings Copilot closer to where you start your day, making it faster and easier to jump into AI‑powered insights.
Why bring Copilot to Home?
Placing Copilot directly on the Home page comes with several benefits:
- Faster insights – start asking questions the moment you land on Home.
- Easier discovery – new users see Copilot right away, encouraging them to use it as part of their natural workflow.
When does it appear?
The new entry point will show up automatically when:
- Standalone Copilot is enabled by your tenant admin.
- You have a valid Copilot capacity available.
If either requirement isn’t met, don’t worry—you’ll continue to see the classic home experience.
Prefer the classic view?
You can always switch back to Recommended content using the picker at the top of the Home page. Toggle between the experiences your workflow needs.
To learn more, visit: Standalone Copilot experience in Power BI (Preview).
Reporting
Field parameters persist hierarchy level setting
In July 2025, field parameters became generally available, improving how matrices remember their expanded or collapsed state when the field parameter selection changes. Previously, many users found it confusing that a matrix would fully collapse whenever a field parameter value changed. Since the update, however, some users have shared that they preferred the earlier behavior because it felt more familiar and better suited for their workflows.
To address this, we’ve added a new report-level setting that lets you restore the pre-July 2025 behavior for field parameters’ expansion and collapse of hierarchy levels. By default, hierarchy levels remain persistent, but you can switch off this feature for a report using the Persist Hierarchy Level setting. The following examples are where to find it:
- In Power BI Desktop, navigate to Options and settings > Options > Current File > Report settings > Field Parameters > Persist hierarchy level.
- In Fabric, navigate to the report settings and find Persist hierarchy level under Field parameter options.
To illustrate the difference, consider a matrix showing a field parameter called Product Group and a column called Year on the rows, displaying Total sales. The field parameter allows selection of Category, Class, Color, or any combination.
In the following example, Category is selected, and the Categories are expanded, so you can see values broken down by Year:
Now, when you change the field parameter from Category to Class, what happens depends on the Persist hierarchy level setting. If it’s on, the matrix remains expanded, keeping the Year column visible; If it’s off, the matrix collapses and displays only values for Class. The following table provides a comparison showing both behaviors based on whether the toggle is enabled or disabled.
| On | Off |
 |
 |
We greatly value user feedback and continuously strive to improve the experience based on your input. The introduction of the persist hierarchy level setting is a direct result of listening to your suggestions, and we hope this new option enhances your reporting workflows and satisfaction.
To learn more about the toggle and its impact, refer to the documentation on Let report readers use field parameters to change visuals.
Format Pane Improvements
With this version, we are releasing two improvements to Format Pane – Improved Color picker and reset to default experiences.
Improved Color Picker Experience in Power BI
Power BI report creators can customize colors in visuals with a theme color picker and custom color picker. We have added additional capabilities to this release.
- A clear indicator for the currently selected theme color.
- A simple way to reset colors to their default settings.
- A back button to return from custom colors to theme colors.
This enhancement makes color customization more intuitive and efficient, helping you design reports with confidence and ease.
Learn more about color formatting your visuals in the Tips and tricks for formatting color in reports documentation.
Granular Reset Options in the Format Pane
Format pane reset to default quickly let’s report creators undo customizations made to a visual. With this release, you can now reset default with finer control, for a single formatting group in the format pane. This is in addition to the existing functionality of reset to default for the whole visual and each section of the format pane.
- Reset this group settings to default within each section.
- Reset group settings without impacting the rest of the section.
This enhancement delivers greater flexibility and usability, making it easier to fine-tune your report formatting with confidence.
Learn more about formatting visuals in Power BI reports in the Get started formatting report visualizations documentation.
Introducing Markers in Azure Maps Visual
Azure Maps Visual for Power BI now supports a powerful new capability: Markers. Display your data points using customized icons, varying sizes, and advanced formatting features to improve narrative clarity in geospatial analysis.
- Replace basic shape markers with icons or custom images to represent deliveries, facilities, or assets using meaningful symbols like trucks, warehouses, or alerts.
- Scale marker sizes dynamically reflect the data measures such as shipment volume, population density, or sales.
- Customize colors and transparency for improved contrast and visibility on the map.
- Use distinct icons for each category, making reports easier to interpret.
Learn more about the rich capabilities of Azure maps in Power BI reports in the Get started with Azure Maps Power BI visual documentation.
Modern Visual Tooltips (Generally Available)
Modern visual tooltips introduces enhanced usability, accessibility, and interactivity to your reports. These tooltips offer new capabilities in Power BI reports.
- Drill actions: The new Actions footer lets users drill down, drill up, or drill through data points directly from the tooltip—no need to use the right-click menu or visual header. This streamlines navigation and makes exploring data more intuitive.
- Styling: Tooltips automatically match your report’s theme colors, with options to further customize background, text, and icon colors in both the theme and Format pane.
New reports get updated styling and the Actions footer by default. Existing reports keep their previous customizations, and you can enable or disable the Actions footer anytime via the Format pane.
Modern visual tooltips in Power BI reports enhance usability and interactivity by allowing users to drill down, up, or through data directly from the tooltip Actions footer. These tooltips automatically adopt report theme colors, offer customization options, and provide updated styling by default for new reports, with flexibility to enable or disable the Actions footer as needed in the Format pane.
To learn more, refer to the Create Visual Tooltips documentation.
Column Sizing Update in Tables and Matrices
In previous releases, table and matrix visuals automatically expanded their columns to fill the available space. This feature was introduced for tables in October 2025 and for matrices in November 2025. You gave us feedback that this often meant that even small fields stretched wider than necessary, creating layouts that felt inconsistent or wasted screen real estate.
With this month’s release, that behavior has changed. In reports created from this release onward, columns are once again sized by default based on the content they contain. This makes tables and matrices more compact, easier to read, and better aligned with the actual data.
You can still manually adjust column widths, or use Grow to Fit to expand columns when needed. But by default, visuals now prioritize content-driven sizing, giving you cleaner and more predictable layouts right out of the box.
Here’s a before and after of the defaults:
| Before | After |
 |  |
 |
 |
We want to thank everyone who provided feedback. We greatly appreciate it! To learn more, refer to the documentation on adjusting column width in the table and matrix.
Modeling
Updates on Editing Semantic Models in the Power BI Service
In September 2025, we announced the General Availability of editing semantic models in the Power BI Service. Models configured with incremental refresh are now supported, eliminating the prior restriction that prevented these models from being opened in the service.
You can now seamlessly open and edit these models directly into the Power BI Service. However, note that semantic models with incremental refresh still cannot be downloaded as PBIX files, and you cannot use the Power Query editor when editing these models in the web experience.
To learn more about editing semantic models in the service, refer to the Edit semantic models in the Power BI service documentation.
Chinese coded character set (GB18030-2022) support
China’s GB18030‑2022 standard is the latest update to the national character set requirements. It ensures compatibility with Unicode 11.0 and mandates support for additional characters, including minority scripts and emoji. For organizations operating in or with China, compliance is not optional. Rather, it’s a regulatory requirement.
Starting with this release, Power BI can be configured to respect GB18030‑2022 encoding using the UnicodeCharacterBehavior setting. This setting is set to CodeUnits by default. To ensure your model is compatible with GB18030-2022, you’ll need to execute a specific XMLA command to set UnicodeCharacterBehavior to CodePoints: <Alter AllowCreate="true" ObjectExpansion="ObjectProperties" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine"> <Object> <DatabaseID>[your database id]</DatabaseID> </Object> <ObjectDefinition> <Database ....> <ID>[your model id]</ID> <Name>[your model name]</Name> <Language>[your language code]</Language> <ddl200:CompatibilityLevel>[your model compatibility level]</ddl200:CompatibilityLevel> <ddl200_200:StorageEngineUsed>[your storage engine]</ddl200_200:StorageEngineUsed> <UnicodeCharacterBehavior xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2025/engine/924/924">CodePoints</UnicodeCharacterBehavior> ... </Database> </ObjectDefinition> </Alter>
Adding GB18030‑2022 support in Power BI isn’t just a technical tweak; it’s a compliance safeguard and a way to ensure your reports remain globally accessible. With the above XMLA command, you can align your semantic models with modern encoding standards and avoid downstream issues in multilingual environments.
The UnicodeCharacterBehavior influences any DAX function that determines the length of a text string, which include FIND, LEFT, LEN, MID, REPLACE, RIGHT. These functions will exhibit different behaviors when working with text strings that contain Unicode characters.
Let’s look at how this works in practice. Here’s a measure that uses LEN to calculate the length of a text string:
StringLength = LEN ( SELECTEDVALUE ( 'Table'[Column1] ) )
Here’s a before and after comparison of the result of StringLength on a column that contains Unicode characters:
| UnicodeCharacterBehavior = CodeUnits (default) | UnicodeCharacterBehavior = CodePoints |
 |  |
Notice how on the left each Unicode character has length 2, where on the right, each Unicode character has length 1.
To learn more, refer to the documentation.
Developers + API’s
Power BI Enhanced Report Format (PBIR) as Default Format
In November 2025, we announced PBIR will become the default Power BI Report Format for both PBIX and PBIP files (For PBIX users, switching to the PBIR report format does not impact their experience).
PBIR will be activated by default in the Power BI service as part of a phased rollout, with full availability anticipated by the end of February. Beginning with the March release, PBIR will be set as the default format in Power BI Desktop.
PBIR is currently in Preview with an opt-out option. Switching to PBIR is the last step before its General Availability, planned for Q3 2026. Any issues found now will be prioritized and addressed. Any issues identified during this period will be prioritized and addressed by our support team.
We recommend preparing for this transition ahead of GA, as PBIR will be the only supported report format once it becomes generally available.
Visualizations
Funnel Chart by Powerviz
The Funnel Chart by Powerviz is a stunning and informative visualization. It has 4 chart types in 1 visual, including a pyramid chart. The Power BI-certified visual is useful for tracking progress through different stages. It can also group data with legends for detailed insights.
Key Features:
- Funnel Settings: Multiple display types are available, including vertical and horizontal orientation.
- Data Colors: Offers 7 schemes and 30+ color palettes.
- Labels: Select from multiple display styles with a custom label option included.
- Conversion Rate: In a single click measure the percentage of top and bottom stages to identify bottlenecks.
- Fill Patterns: Highlight stages with custom or pre-filled patterns.
- Conditional Formatting: Create rules based on measure or category rules.
- Totals: Display the total value at the top or bottom of the funnel chart.
- Ranking: Filter out Top/Bottom N stages.
- Annotation: Create multiple stories from one visual with comments for easy collaboration and clarity.
Many other features included are grid view, show condition, and accessibility support.
Business Use Cases:
Sales Funnel Analysis, Marketing Campaigns, User Onboarding, & Website Traffic
- Try Funnel Chart for FREE from AppSource
- Check out all features of the visual: Demo_file
- Step-by-step instructions: Documentation
- YouTube Video: Video_Link
- Learn more about visuals: https://powerviz.ai/
- Follow Powerviz: https://lnkd.in/gN_9Sa6U
Closing
This concludes this month’s update.
We hope the information provided in this update is useful. If you installed Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store, please leave us a review.
As always, keep voting on Ideas to help us determine what to build next. We look forward to hearing from you!