Power BI Track

Wednesday 12:40 PM - 1:00 PM · Expo Innovation Theater

AI for BI: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Marius Moscovici

Marius Moscovici

CEO

Every BI platform now includes AI—from Microsoft Fabric CoPilot to standalone chatbots. Yet without a unified strategy, these tools create fragmented user experiences and governance risks. This session introduces a clear Reference Architecture for implementing AI for BI at scale—helping enterprises eliminate silos, ensure control, and build a sustainable, scalable system.

Wednesday 12:40 PM - 1:00 PM · Expo Insight Theater

Vortex: AI-Powered Migration to Power BI / Microsoft Fabric Made Simple

Bill Collette

Bill Collette

Axis Group - Regional Director

Nathan Hombroek

Nathan Hombroek

VP, Innovation at Axis Group

Legacy platforms create data silos blocking innovation. Manual migrations take 12+ months with 83% failing. See how AI automation transforms this: smart rationalization prioritizes assets, automated conversion handles apps and pipelines, and optimization ensures quality. Watch live demos and hear how one organization migrated an app portfolio in months, unlocking Fabric's modern capabilities.

Wednesday 12:40 PM - 1:00 PM · Expo Solution Theater

How to build a 360-degree view of customers, suppliers, or contacts across OneLake

Michael Destein

Michael Destein

VP, Technology Alliances, Quantexa

Learn how to create a 360-degree, contextual view across all your OneLake data in Microsoft Fabric. See how to perform high-quality data matching using Entity Resolution techniques across different entity types, eg. people, businesses and locations. Accurately link data across sources and enrich incomplete data. Break down silos and get your data ready for AI, powering better and faster decisions.

Wednesday 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM · B401-B402

Designing for the Right User: Why Personas Are the Secret to Better Power BI Reports

Elena Drakulevska

Elena Drakulevska

where Power BI meets UX Design and a little magic ✨ | Microsoft MVP

Reports don’t fail because you’re bad at design. They fail because they’re built for the wrong user. Learn how to identify the real “characters” behind your Power BI reports, from the big-picture strategist to the action-taker and the detail-obsessed analyst, and how to tailor layout, detail, and interactions so each user gets what they need to make confident decisions.

Wednesday 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM · C105-C106

Power Query Escape Room

John Kerski

John Kerski

Director, Client First Technologies

Leslie Welch

Leslie Welch

I solve problems.

The villainous Lord Taart Chart has stolen your curated data and locked it in his Azure Vault! Your mission: face 10 Power Query Puzzles that challenge your skills to wrangle, transform, and tame messy data. Can you outsmart him and reclaim your data before it’s lost forever?

Wednesday 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM · C302

Planning & Writeback on Top of Semantic Models

Liran Edelist

Liran Edelist

Chief Product Officer, Lumel

Unlock hidden ROI by turning your existing semantic layer into a full planning engine. This innovation eliminates duplicate EPM systems, unifies actuals and plans, and delivers real-time, governed insights. By activating write-back directly to Fabric, organizations cut cost, boost agility, and transform planning into a seamless extension of analytics.

Wednesday 3:05 PM - 4:05 PM · C111-C112

CORENOTE: Power BI Roadmap: Strategy, Vision, and Demos

Nico Cristache

Nico Cristache

Microsoft, CVP of Power BI

Sara Vredevoogd

Sara Vredevoogd

Principal Product Manager at Microsoft

Power BI empowers organizations to turn insights into actions and deliver enterprise analytics at scale in Fabric. In this session discover why businesses standardize on Power BI, learn about building a data-driven culture, and get a first look at upcoming features that unlock your data’s potential.

Wednesday 3:05 PM - 4:05 PM · TMB 4

Make Managed Self-Service BI Work for You with Power BI and Purview (the BI Mullet Approach)

Lenore Flower

Lenore Flower

Consultant & Trainer - Data Plumber LLC

When designed well, a managed self-service BI approach strikes the perfect balance between centralized data discipline and flexible self-service reporting. This session will demonstrate how smart Power BI implementation (including centrally maintained semantic models, report templates, and administration) saves time, money, and headaches when paired with Purview's Unified Catalog.

Wednesday 4:25 PM - 5:25 PM · C302

CI/CD and DevOps for Power BI: Beyond the Happy Path

Amir Sarir

Amir Sarir

Senior BI Solutions Engineer at Motio

Edwin Van Megesen

Edwin Van Megesen

Delivering DevOps for a Safeguarded Power BI Experience

CI/CD is vital to efficient and governed Power BI delivery, yet Azure DevOps rarely follows the “happy path.” This session exposes the burden of manual steps, merge conflicts, and the limitations of GIT. Next, full-automated alternatives will be evaluated, covering zero-touch version control, enhanced lineage, advanced deployment workflows, and some of the associated pitfalls.

Thursday 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM · TMB 2-3

Power BI Copilot Roadmap: What's New and Coming Soon

Anita Ambalavanan

Anita Ambalavanan

Senior Product Manager, Power BI, Microsoft

Lada Hill

Lada Hill

Microsoft, Program Manager

This session will cover recent updates and the roadmap for Copilot in Power BI. We'll chat about new and existing capabilities to help improve your Power BI Copilot experience so you get the most out of your data. Featuring lots of demos and cutting-edge information, this session is one you don't want to miss.

Thursday 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM · B308-B309

From Simple Maps to Advanced Spatial Analytics in Power BI

Vincent Dechandon

Vincent Dechandon

Product & Marketing Lead at Galigeo, The Where Company

Explore the full spectrum of Location Intelligence in Power BI, from simple map coloring to advanced spatial analytics. Learn the core concepts behind mapping; how to choose the right geographies and map them with BI data; how to analyze data through proximity and travel times; and how to manage dynamic territories. Session will include native Power BI mapping capabilities as well as custom visuals.

Thursday 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM · B313b-B314

Once Upon a Report: The Storytelling Power of Power BI

Julia Boe

Julia Boe

TruNorth Dynamics, Functional Consultant, Certified Power BI

Every great report has a plot, characters, and a message. In this interactive session, you’ll learn how to weave storytelling principles into Power BI design—using data to guide, persuade, and engage your audience. From color psychology to narrative structure, discover how to make your reports feel less like spreadsheets and more like experiences.

Thursday 10:10 AM - 11:10 AM · C111-C112

What's New and What's Next for Power BI Visuals

Harleen Kaur

Harleen Kaur

Microsoft, Program Manager

Jacinda Eng

Jacinda Eng

Product Manager at Microsoft (Power BI)

Join this session with the Power BI Product team to discover the vision, innovation, and future of Power BI visuals! We'll dive into how our overarching goals and strategies shape our decision-making to build user-focused features. Through real-world examples of recent feature releases, we'll demonstrate how to enable impactful data storytelling. You'll also gain an exclusive preview of what’s next for Power BI visuals—both in the short and long term—helping you shape your data visualization journey.

Thursday 10:10 AM - 11:10 AM · TMB 1

Power BI in Higher Education: Real Use Cases from Enrollment to Graduation

Andrew Sommer

Andrew Sommer

Chief Data Officer - Missouri University of Science & Technology

Santhana Lakshmi Ponnurasan

Santhana Lakshmi Ponnurasan

Data Analyst | Power BI Specialist

Higher ed generates massive data across admissions, enrollment, advising, and alumni, often stuck in silos. This session shows how Power BI unifies it through real examples: funnels, trends, retention, student success, faculty workload, and outcomes. Learn to model complex structures, clean data, and build clear visuals you can apply immediately.

Thursday 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM · TMB 2-3

Optimizing Your Power BI Data for AI

Emily Lisa

Emily Lisa

Principal Product Manager

Tori Pinheiro

Tori Pinheiro

Power BI Product team

Discover how to prepare and optimize your Power BI data for AI-driven experiences. We’ll cover best practices for refining your semantic model to help Copilot deliver higher‑quality, more meaningful insights. You’ll also get practical guidance and early demos of upcoming capabilities that use AI to enhance and streamline semantic model optimization.

Thursday 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM · B308-B309

Enterprise Row-Level Security: A Blueprint for Scale in Fabric

Karl Pover

Karl Pover

Senior Solutions Architect at Axis Group

Managing RLS for 100s of users across multiple semantic models becomes chaos fast. We'll share a proven architecture for complex security—VPs see regions, managers see departments, reps see customers. Learn reusable RLS table design, AD Group patterns to prevent role sprawl, performance tips, and self-service access reports. Walk away with a blueprint from production managing 500+ users.

Thursday 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM · C111-C112

Expert vs. AI: The Power BI Turing Test

Sid Vemuri

Sid Vemuri

Product Manager at Power BI

Sujata Narayana

Sujata Narayana

Principal GPM at Power BI

Come witness a Power BI showdown between an expert developer vs. intermediate developer supercharged by AI. Both tackle real-world challenges like designing good data models and polished reports. Like a modern Turing test, you become the judge: can AI-augmented development produce solutions indistinguishable from expert craftsmanship? Or will the subtle nuances of true mastery still stand apart?

Thursday 4:15 PM - 5:15 PM · C211-C213

DAX 201: CALCULATE, Unfolding the Swiss Army Knife of DAX Functions

Michael Hewitt

Michael Hewitt

Community Leader | Speaker | Data Analytics | Power BI | Fabric | Data Visualization | Power Platform

This session unfolds evaluation context and the logic behind CALCULATE(). Through examples, we'll demystify how row context, filter context, and CALCULATE() work together to produce dynamic calculation results. You'll gain confidence to tackle advanced calculations and optimize measure performance.

Thursday 4:15 PM - 5:15 PM · B404

Make your Power BI Desktop report print-ready (in one hour or less)

Lenore Flower

Lenore Flower

Consultant & Trainer - Data Plumber LLC

Need a printable version of an existing Power BI report fast? Learn how to convert a .pbix into a paginated .rdl by using the same semantic model in Power BI Report Builder. This session walks you through each step of converting an existing Power BI report into its paginated equivalent, then reviews how to address common paginated report issues with parameters, print layout, and grouping.

Friday 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM · TMB 2-3

Unlocking the Spectrum of Data Questions with Power BI Copilot through Analysis Mode

Carly Newsome

Carly Newsome

Senior Program Manager | Power BI

Eun Hee Kim

Eun Hee Kim

Principal Product Manager - Power BI, Microsoft

Analysis mode offers deep functionality that uses a reasoning model to answer complex, layered analytical questions that go beyond data retrieval questions. Analysis mode produces rich explanations that highlight key insights and walk through how the answer was formed, giving you a powerful partner for informed decision-making. Join us to learn more about Power BI Copilot’s abilities to answer across the full spectrum of questions from simple to complex!

Friday 10:10 AM - 11:10 AM · TMB 2-3

Taking Direct Lake to the Next Level

Christian Wade

Christian Wade

Group Product Manager at Microsoft

Philip Seamark

Philip Seamark

Microsoft Fabric CAT team

Learn how to design and optimise Power BI models using Direct Lake in Microsoft Fabric. This session covers advanced DAX techniques, storage‑mode strategies, and performance tips to help you build faster, more scalable solutions. Walk away with practical patterns you can apply immediately in your own projects.

Friday 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM · TMB 2-3

Reporting with action: Visualizations with translytical task flows in Power BI and Fabric

Zoe Douglas

Zoe Douglas

Product Manager at Microsoft

Join this session to learn about translytical task flows combining Power BI reports and Fabric user data functions together for actionable reports with a click of a button. We’ll demo how to set it up, the options you have, and specific examples of these reports in action. Interested in what this is or are you already using it today? We’ll have insights you don’t want to miss!

Friday 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM · TMB 2-3

Data Modeling Like a Pro in Fabric

Christian Wade

Christian Wade

Group Product Manager at Microsoft

Rui Romano

Rui Romano

Principal Product Manager @ Microsoft, Power BI | Microsoft Fabric

Join the Fabric product team for an in-depth session to learn about data modeling in Fabric, including Direct Lake and composite models for scale and flexibility, and AI-first workflows to achieve 10x productivity. Get ready for mind-blowing demos and sneak peaks into upcoming capabilities so you can develop semantic models like the experts.

Friday 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM · TMB 1

Semantic Link Labs: The Data Detective’s Toolkit

Jason Romans

Jason Romans

Lifelong Learner - Microsoft MVP

Every data detective needs the right toolkit—and Semantic Link Labs delivers. In this demo-heavy session, you’ll see it link Power BI datasets with Python notebooks for deeper diagnostics. Learn to trace relationships, uncover hidden dependencies, validate measures, and resolve issues that impact report quality, performance, and reliability. Get patterns for monitoring, validating, and correcting.

Friday 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM · TMB 2-3

Delivering Insights Where Your Users Work

Dustin Askins

Dustin Askins

Product Manager

Sara Vredevoogd

Sara Vredevoogd

Principal Product Manager at Microsoft

Learn practical strategies for sharing Power BI content across your company. We’ll cover distributing insights through apps (including organizational apps), and how business users can access Power BI directly from their M365 tools and Copilot to boost productivity and make informed decisions. You’ll get a deep look at current capabilities as well as what’s coming next.

Friday 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM · C208-C210

Vibe Coding a Power BI Embedded Portal - From Zero to Hero in 60 Minutes

Peer Grønnerup

Peer Grønnerup

Technical Architect & Community Advocate at Tabular Editor

Power BI Embedded isn’t just for developers.

In this fast-paced vibe-coding session, we’ll demystify it by building a real custom portal in 60 minutes, using AI to speed things up.

See how to set Power BI Embedded up quickly, craft a user-centric experience, improve navigation beyond the service, and unlock powerful opportunities without heavy coding, giving you a fresh view of what’s truly possible.