Microsoft Power BI Desktop  ·  Release Reference

Updates
2025 2026

A curated timeline of every major release from January 2025 through May 2026 — new features, GA announcements, AI upgrades, deprecations, and developer APIs.

May 2026 — Current 17 Monthly Updates Microsoft Learn Jan 2025 – May 2026

Copilot & AI
Reporting
Modeling
Data Connectivity
Visualizations
Performance
Deprecation
Developer API
May 2026
May 2026 — Latest Update
Visual calculations GA · Explore improvements · New Get Data UX
CURRENT
Copilot Reporting Modeling Connectivity Visuals Dev API
📐
Visual Calculations & Custom TotalsGA — Running sums, moving averages, percent-of-parent, min/max/average totals — all built directly inside visuals without adding DAX measures to the semantic model. "None" and "Average" custom total options now GA.
🔭
Explore improvements — Set an Exploration Perspective to give report consumers a focused field list. Auto-expand adjusts to show newly added fields. Show/hide totals from toolbar. Matrix formatting carries over when launching from a formatted visual.
Copilot summary shortcuts — New Summarize button on the report ribbon opens Copilot and generates a report-wide summary. Also available per-visual from the visual header menu.
🧩
Copilot Narrative visual in EmbedPreview — The AI Narrative/Copilot visual can now be embedded in customer applications, bringing AI-generated text summaries into ISV and custom app scenarios.
🏠
Set as Landing PageGA — Report authors can designate any page as the default landing page for consumers.
📅
Default format string locale for dates & numbersGA — Report-level locale setting for consistent date and number formatting across all visuals.
🕰️
Version History in Power BI Desktop — Desktop now exposes a version history panel so you can browse and restore earlier saves of your PBIP reports without leaving the app.
🔌
New Get Data experiencePreview — A redesigned, unified connector discovery UI spanning Power BI Desktop, Microsoft Fabric, and Excel.
🌐
Faster Web Modeling access — New shortcut in Desktop lets semantic model authors jump directly to the web modeling surface for browser-based edits.
📊
New certified visuals — Card with States (OKVIZ), Financial Reporting Matrix by Profitbase, Lollipop Chart by Powerviz, TMap 3.1, Drill Down Timeline PRO, and Multiple Sparklines added.
Developer API Execute DAX Queries REST API Preview
A new public REST endpoint — /datasets/{id}/executeDaxQueries — lets you run DAX against any Power BI semantic model and stream results back as Apache Arrow IPC (columnar binary). No row limits, multiple EVALUATE statements per request, native data-type fidelity. Requires Power BI Premium or Fabric capacity.
PYTHON · Execute DAX → pandas DataFrame → Delta Table
# ── 1. Acquire token (Fabric notebook — no app registration needed) ──────
import notebookutils

PBI_RESOURCE = "https://analysis.windows.net/powerbi/api"
access_token = notebookutils.credentials.getToken(PBI_RESOURCE)

# ── 2. Helper: POST DAX → return pandas DataFrame via Arrow IPC ──────────
import io, requests, pandas as pd, pyarrow as pa

def execute_dax(workspace_id: str, dataset_id: str, query: str) -> pd.DataFrame:
    url = (
        f"https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/{workspace_id}"
        f"/datasets/{dataset_id}/executeDaxQueries"
    )
    resp = requests.post(url, headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {access_token}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    }, json={
        "query": query,
        "resultsetRowcountLimit": 500000
    }, timeout=180)
    resp.raise_for_status()
    reader = pa.ipc.open_stream(io.BytesIO(resp.content))
    return reader.read_all().to_pandas()

# ── 3. Run DAX query against your semantic model ─────────────────────────
WORKSPACE_ID  = "your-workspace-guid"
DATASET_ID    = "your-semantic-model-guid"

df = execute_dax(WORKSPACE_ID, DATASET_ID, """
EVALUATE
SUMMARIZECOLUMNS(
    'Date'[Year],
    'Sales Territory'[Region],
    "Total Sales", [Total Sales Amount],
    "YoY Growth",  [YoY Sales Growth %]
)
ORDER BY 'Date'[Year] DESC
""")

# ── 4. Persist as V-Ordered Delta table for Direct Lake consumption ───────
import re
from delta.tables import DeltaTable

spark_df = spark.createDataFrame(df)
spark_df = spark_df.toDF(*[re.sub(r"[ ,;{}()\n\t=]", "_", c) for c in spark_df.columns])

spark_df.write.format("delta") \
    .mode("overwrite") \
    .option("overwriteSchema", "true") \
    .option("delta.parquet.vorder.enabled", "true") \
    .saveAsTable("semantic_extract_sales_delta")

print(f"✓ Exported {len(df):,} rows to Delta table")
spark.sql("SELECT * FROM semantic_extract_sales_delta LIMIT 5").show()

💡 Why this matters for your stack: You can query your stocks_mart-backed semantic model programmatically from any Python script — no XMLA endpoint complexity, no row-limit workarounds. Results land as an Arrow stream, convert to pandas in one line, and can be piped directly into PostgreSQL or a Delta table.

Apr 2026
April 2026
Copilot Mobile chat · Direct Lake calculated columns · Visual polish
CopilotReportingModelingVisualsDeprecations
📱
Copilot in Power BI Mobile — conversational chat — In-report Copilot on iOS and Android now supports full back-and-forth conversation grounded in the open report. Ask questions, drill deeper, get AI-generated visualizations, and follow up — all with citations to source visuals. Voice dictation available on iPhone and iPad.
🧮
Direct Lake calculated columns & tablesPreview — Unmaterialized calculated columns on Direct Lake OneLake tables are now available, along with calculated tables referencing Direct Lake columns.
👤
User-context-aware calculated columnsPreview — Calculated columns can now respond dynamically to UserCulture(), UserPrincipalName(), and CustomData() via Expression Context property.
🎨
Modern visual defaults + base theme switcherPreview — Customize Theme dialog includes a base theme switcher. Banded rows on by default in tables/matrices; Orchid and Innovate theme axis color corrections.
📐
Fixed size layout for card, button slicer & list slicer — Define exact pixel dimensions per item. Autogrid renamed to Fit to space. Hierarchical list slicers maintain consistent spacing on expand/collapse.
🔣
NAMEOF DAX enhancementsPreviewNAMEOF(<object>, <component>, <escaped>) now supports optional parameters to choose which part of a name to return. Backwards compatible.
⚠️
Deprecations: Old file picker experience removed (new one is default from Apr 2026); built-in Netezza ODBC driver deprecated in favor of IBM-provided driver.
Mar 2026
March 2026 — FabCon Release
Latest stable release
ReportingModelingCopilotDataVisuals
Translytical Task FlowsGA — Users can now write data back to Fabric SQL, Warehouses, and Lakehouses directly from reports — edit records, add annotations, call external APIs like Azure OpenAI — without leaving Power BI.
🎨
Modern Visual DefaultsPreview — Fluent 2-aligned base theme with subtitles, uniform padding, style presets, smooth line charts, dropdown slicers, and a 1080×1920px gray canvas by default.
🔢
Custom TotalsPreview — Tables and matrices now let you override total row values with sum, min, max, count, or distinct count of displayed rows via right-click or Build pane.
📈
Series Label Leader Lines — Line charts now draw smart connector lines from series labels to their data points, with collision avoidance and formatting controls for style, width, and transparency.
🌊
Direct Lake in OneLakeGA — Delta Lake / Parquet-native storage mode now works from Desktop with OneLake security, more modeling features, and faster queries.
🖥️
TMDL View on the WebPreview — Code-first semantic modeling directly in the browser using Tabular Model Definition Language, enabling bulk edits and automation without switching to Desktop.
🧩
DAX User-Defined Functions (expanded)Preview — New INFO.USERDEFINEDFUNCTIONS(), auto-renaming on dependency tracking, new type hints, JSDoc support, and up to 256 parameters (up from 12).
Feb 2026
February 2026
v2.151.1052.0
CopilotReportingModelingDeprecations
💬
Input SlicerGA — Renamed from "Text Slicer," now GA. Filter with free-form text using exact match, contains, or starts-with. Supports paste-from-clipboard for multi-value filtering.
📝
Copilot prompt limit → 10,000 chars — Up from 500 characters across all Copilot surfaces (Standalone, Report pane, Apps, Mobile, Embed). Enables far richer analytical queries.
🃏
Card visual updates — Default callout count raised from 5 to 10; clicking a category name now cross-filters other visuals on the page.
🔣
TABLEOF & NAMEOF DAX functions — Two new functions for safer, more maintainable DAX: TABLEOF returns a table reference from a column/measure/calendar; NAMEOF returns its name as text.
🗺️
Azure Maps updates — Performance boost for pie-chart overlays; new endpoint regions for Korea and Brazil added.
🔠
Cross-platform fonts fixed — Segoe UI and other Windows-default fonts now render correctly on macOS, iOS, and Android browsers in published reports.
⚠️
Deprecations announced: Hierarchies in Scorecards (Apr 15 2026), SCOM Management Packs for SSRS/PBIRS/SSAS (Jan 2027), Legacy Excel/CSV import (May 31 2026), Simba Vertica ODBC driver.
Jan 2026
January 2026
New year · PBIR becomes default
ModelingCopilotReporting
📁
PBIR becomes default format — Starting March 2026 (phased), PBIR is the default for both PBIX and PBIP. Full GA planned Q3 2026. Enables Git versioning, Azure DevOps CI/CD, and collaborative development.
📎
Copilot grounded references — Attach a specific Report or Semantic Model to Copilot chat (tap + or type /) to ground its answers on your chosen data source, reducing hallucinations.
🔄
Incremental-refresh models editable in serviceGA — Models with incremental refresh can now be opened and edited directly in the Power BI web service.
📊
Field parameters hierarchy persistence setting — New report-level toggle to restore pre-July 2025 collapse behavior for users who prefer matrices to reset on field parameter changes.
"Approved for Copilot" setting — Semantic models can be marked as approved (formerly "prepped for AI"), unlocking richer Copilot responses without friction treatment.
Nov 2025
November 2025
Card visual GA + Mobile Copilot
CopilotVisualsConnectivityDeprecation
🃏
Card visualGA — The redesigned Card visual reaches general availability with multi-callout support and improved cross-filtering behavior.
📱
Standalone Copilot in Power BI MobilePreview — A dedicated Copilot experience in the mobile apps for AI-driven Q&A without needing to open a specific dataset first.
🔍
Verified Answers improvements — Copilot now surfaces Verified Answers more prominently and applies them with higher confidence, reducing incorrect or generic responses.
Auto-expanding matrix columns — Matrices can now automatically expand columns based on content, reducing manual column-width adjustments in dense reports.
🤖
Copilot pane UX refresh — Updated look matching the standalone Copilot experience: cleaner prompt flow, copy actions relocated, diagnostics attachable to feedback submissions.
🔌
IBM Netezza ODBC DriverGA — Replaces the embedded Simba driver. QuickBooks Online connector retired.
AI Narrative Auto-Refresh — New toggle updates AI Narrative summaries automatically on every slicer change, eliminating manual refreshes.
Oct 2025
October 2025
Release Wave 2 kickoff
CopilotDataPerformanceDeprecation
🤖
Copilot DAX generation — Copilot can now generate and explain DAX queries directly, streamlining measure creation for analysts unfamiliar with DAX syntax.
🗺️
Azure Maps replaces Bing Maps — The legacy Bing Maps visual begins migration to Azure Maps. New map visuals default to Azure Maps with richer configuration and modern tile layers.
🌊
Dataflows Gen2 integration — Power BI Desktop can export cleaned Power Query data directly into Dataflows Gen2 or Fabric Lakehouses, enabling governed, reusable data products.
💻
Power BI Desktop for ARM — Native ARM64 build for Windows on ARM devices (Surface Pro X, Snapdragon laptops), delivering faster launches and longer battery life.
⚠️
Metric Sets creation ends Oct 25, 2025 — Full removal scheduled for early 2026. Users should migrate to Scorecards and alternative KPI tools.
Sep 2025
September 2025
v2.147.1085.0
ModelingConnectivityPerformance
🖊️
Edit semantic models in the Power BI ServiceGA — Change calculated columns, rename tables, adjust hierarchies without opening Desktop. Deploy quickly from browser.
🔗
Oracle Managed ODP Provider for Import Mode — Bundled Oracle driver enabled by default; brings more stable Oracle connectivity without separate driver installs.
🐞
Key bug fixes — Resolved DirectQuery refresh error; fixed LiveConnect-to-composite-model save failures; restored missing Queries section in Power Query Editor (dark/light mode).
❄️
Snowflake connector fixes — Addressed TaskCanceledException crashes in Snowflake workflows and resolved empty Load dialog issues in the Windows client.
Jul 2025
July 2025
Field Parameters GA
ReportingModelingCopilot
🔢
Field ParametersGA — Generally available. Matrices now remember expanded/collapsed state when field parameter selections change, eliminating confusing full-collapse behavior.
🏠
Copilot Home Screen entry point — A dedicated Copilot button on the Desktop home screen lets users start AI chat sessions immediately, without opening a dataset first.
🔧
VS Code & GitHub integration improved — Power BI projects integrate more seamlessly with VS Code and GitHub for collaborative development and shared data model versioning.
May 2025
May 2025
AI model governance
CopilotModeling
"Prepped for AI" semantic model setting launched — (later renamed "Approved for Copilot" in Jan 2026) Enables model owners to signal Copilot readiness, unlocking higher-quality AI responses without friction filters.
🔒
GB18030-2022 character set support — China national standard for Unicode 11.0 compatibility, including minority scripts and modern emoji, added for 21Vianet (China) deployments.
Mar 2025
March 2025
Connector quality & fixes
ConnectivityPerformanceReporting
❄️
Snowflake connector stability fixes — Multiple connector-level regressions patched; improved authentication reliability for large enterprise Snowflake deployments.
Enhanced query folding & caching — Optimized query folding across major connectors reduces refresh times and improves real-time dashboard performance at scale.
🐞
PBIP save fix — Resolved inability to save PBIP files when TMDL View preview feature was enabled; fixed broken custom visual dialogs and download API confirmation regression.
🏪
Microsoft Store Desktop fix — Addressed "Edit in Desktop" failures for Store-installed versions of Power BI Desktop, restoring full edit-in-place workflows.
Jan 2025
January 2025
Year kickoff
ReportingCopilotConnectivity
🗂️
Updated file picker experience — A new, more intuitive file and folder navigator introduced in Power BI Desktop (becomes the default in April 2026).
📊
Copilot cross-surface consistency — Copilot experiences aligned across Desktop, web, and mobile for a consistent question-and-answer interface regardless of entry point.
🔗
Salesforce & enterprise connector improvements — Strengthened connectivity for Salesforce with improved authentication and better support for large object queries.
🪄
Funnel chart visual added — Certified Powerviz funnel chart visual added to the AppSource marketplace, expanding out-of-the-box visualization options.