FabCon Europe 2026 · Barcelona · Recap

FabCon Europe 2026 in Barcelona: what shipped in Microsoft Fabric, and what's still preview

FabCon and SQLCon Europe 2026 ran from September 28 to October 1, 2026, in Barcelona. The keynote on September 29 turned Microsoft Fabric into a platform for agents: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, MCP clients, Copilot Studio, and apps can now pull answers from Fabric data. This recap labels every announcement GA, PREVIEW, ROADMAP, or TBC, checked against Microsoft Learn on October 21, 2026. It comes with slides in English, Polish, and German, PDFs, 20 recordings from a demo tenant with synthetic data, and a script that rebuilds the demos in your own tenant.

Open the English slides   Polski · Deutsch · PDF · GitHub

FabCon Europe 2026 recap: what shipped in Microsoft Fabric, and what's still preview

Use this recap to

Key takeaways from FabCon Europe 2026

Slides, PDF, and recordings in three languages

Each language has the full 30-slide deck as HTML, a PDF, and its own takes of the demos with typed text, so prompts and agent answers match the language.

LanguageSlidesPDFWhere it was presented
EnglishOpen slidesPDFOnline session, October 23, 2026
PolskiOpen slidesPDFData Community Trójmiasto, meetup #34, Gdynia, October 21, 2026
DeutschOpen slidesPDFOnline-Session, 23. Oktober 2026

Status of every FabCon Europe 2026 announcement

GA means generally available, PREVIEW means public preview, ROADMAP means announced with no date, and TBC means sources disagree or Learn shows no label. Checked against Microsoft Learn on October 21, 2026. Statuses change fast, so check the source before you rely on one.

Spot a status that changed? Send a status update with the source link. Confirmed changes go into the table with a new check date.

IDFeatureStatusWhat it means
S1Fabric IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and CoworkGABusiness questions answered from a semantic model you control. No extra charge for AI tokens, queries still use your capacity. Source
S2Fabric IQ MCP serverGARead-only MCP server for Power BI reports and semantic models: search, metadata, and DAX queries under the signed-in user's permissions. Source
S3Fabric Core MCP serverTBCFabric REST operations as MCP tools. 27 tools, 15 of them write changes to workspaces, items, and permissions. Learn shows no status label. Source
S4Data agents in Copilot StudioTBCA Fabric data agent as a tool for a Copilot Studio agent. Keynote: GA. The Learn walkthrough still says preview on October 21, 2026. Source
S5OneLake Table Read APIPREVIEWApps read Delta and Iceberg tables over REST. OneLake security filters rows and columns on every request. Source
S6Project Osmos, the data engineering agentPREVIEWPlans, runs, and validates data engineering tasks on SparkCore. Tasks persist. Fabric and OneLake permissions remain the boundary. Source
S7Operations agent in Monitor hubPREVIEWRead-only investigation of failed pipeline runs, as the signed-in user. Needs the Contributor role and workspace monitoring. Source
S8Database agents for SQL and PostgreSQLROADMAPAnnounced at the keynote for Database Hub and VS Code, not available yet. Database Hub itself is in preview. Source
S9Ontology in Fabric IQPREVIEWBuilt from semantic models, OneLake data, and documents. Rules in natural language, RDF and Turtle export. The previous ontology retires January 31, 2027. Source
S10Agentic apps in Power BI DesktopPREVIEWPreview announced for the coming weeks. Included with Pro and PPU, up to 1 GB per app, with write-back. Source
S11Copilot for Real-Time IntelligencePREVIEWA Real-Time Dashboard generated from one sentence on an eventhouse. The product shows a Preview label. Source
S12OneLake securityGARoles, RLS, and CLS defined once and enforced across engines, also through shortcuts. GA announced for the coming weeks, with no date yet. Source
S13Outbound access protectionGAPREVIEWA workspace that blocks data from leaving. GA for OneLake shortcuts, preview for data agents. Source
S14Purview DLP restrict accessGABlocks everyone, or only guests, when sensitive data is found in a Fabric item. GA per the keynote, Learn still showed preview on October 7, 2026. Source
S15Policies in FabricPREVIEWAn allow list for the tenant or a capacity. Allow is the only effect, there is no Deny. Source
S16OneLake catalog GovernGAOne admin screen for label coverage, DLP results, tenant settings, and recommended actions. Refreshes once a day. Source
S17Observability: new Monitor hub, workspace monitoring, Activator alertsPREVIEWRun history and success rate for every job, workspace monitoring in an eventhouse, and job alerts. Source
S18OneLake catalog search APIPREVIEWSearch the whole tenant from code with POST /v1/catalog/search, also available as the search_catalog tool in Core MCP. Source
S19AI functions in SparkGAai.translate, ai.analyze_sentiment, and ai.classify in one line per column, on a built-in endpoint with no API key. Source
S20Materialized lake viewsGASilver and gold layers in SQL, with CONSTRAINT ... ON MISMATCH DROP for bad rows. Views authored in PySpark are in preview. Source
S21Fabric data agentGANatural-language questions answered with SQL, DAX, or KQL over lakehouses, warehouses, semantic models, and KQL databases. Source
S22OneLake table APIs: Unity Catalog API and Iceberg REST CatalogGAThe same Delta tables read through Unity Catalog compatible and Iceberg REST Catalog endpoints, with no copy. Source

Three doors: how Fabric data reaches agents

Before Barcelona, Copilot and the data agent worked inside Fabric, and the answer stayed there. After Barcelona, Fabric answers questions from outside the platform, and the main consumer of the data is now an agent.

  1. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Cowork. A user asks in the chat, and Fabric IQ answers from a semantic model you control.
  2. MCP servers. An MCP client queries Fabric IQ read-only, and Core MCP creates workspaces and items on the user's behalf.
  3. Copilot Studio and the OneLake Table Read API. A data agent works as a tool for another agent, and an app reads Delta and Iceberg tables over REST.

Each door enforces the user's permissions. The question is who set those permissions.

Two Microsoft Fabric settings that are on by default

Admin checklist: four tenant settings to check after FabCon 2026

  1. Check who can reach Fabric data from Microsoft 365 Copilot. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, open the Copilot settings and find "Fabric data in Microsoft Copilot". It is on for all users by default. Learn
  2. Review the AI setting on sensitive semantic models. Check the AI setting on semantic models with HR and finance data. It lets anyone with read access use Copilot, the data agent, and MCP tools, and it does not carry over to chained models. Learn
  3. Check the cross-region AI tenant settings. Check the tenant settings that let AI process or store data outside the capacity's region and geography. They matter for capacities outside the EU Data Boundary and the US, including the UK. Learn
  4. Turn on outbound access protection where data is sensitive. Turn on workspace outbound access protection for workspaces with sensitive data, so data cannot leave through shortcuts or data agents. Learn

For engineers: test RLS under the data agent on your own model, and tag preview items before someone puts them into production. For CTOs: the agent acts on the user's behalf, read-only, and can't see more than the user. Ask Microsoft whether an agent can run under its own Entra Agent ID.

What's still missing: the Microsoft Fabric roadmap after Barcelona

IDWhatStatus
R1On-demand billing and F0 capacityComing soon, no pricing yet
R2Database agents for SQL and PostgreSQLComing soon
R3Native ontology and semantic model support in IQ sharingOn the roadmap
R4Apache Ossie, a vendor-neutral ontology standard, together with SnowflakeAnnounced
R5GA date for OneLake securityNot given
R6Previous ontology experienceRetires January 31, 2027

Source: the FabCon and SQLCon 2026 announcement on the Microsoft Azure blog and the Microsoft Learn pages linked above.

FAQ

What was announced at FabCon Europe 2026 in Barcelona?

The main announcements: Fabric IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Cowork (GA), the Fabric IQ MCP server (GA), the Fabric Core MCP server, data agents in Copilot Studio, the OneLake Table Read API (preview), Project Osmos (preview), operations agents (preview), a new ontology in Fabric IQ (preview), agentic apps in Power BI Desktop (preview in the coming weeks), OneLake security (GA announced for the coming weeks), policies in Fabric (preview), and on-demand billing with an F0 capacity (roadmap).

Is Fabric IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat generally available, and does it cost extra?

Yes, it is GA. There is no extra charge for AI tokens, but the queries still use your Fabric capacity, and each user needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Data agents and ontologies answer in Copilot Chat only once they are published as a Microsoft 365 agent.

What is the difference between the Fabric IQ MCP server and the Fabric Core MCP server?

Fabric IQ MCP is a GA, read-only server for Power BI reports and semantic models: search, metadata, and DAX queries under the user's permissions and RLS. Fabric Core MCP exposes Fabric REST operations, and 15 of its 27 tools write changes to workspaces, items, and permissions. Learn warns that autonomous or misconfigured clients may perform destructive actions.

Is OneLake security generally available?

The keynote announced GA for the coming weeks without a date, and Learn gave no GA date on October 21, 2026. OneLake security defines roles, RLS, and CLS once and enforces them across Fabric engines and shortcuts. Every lakehouse has a DefaultReader role. The roles restrict users with Viewer or Read access, while Admin, Member, and Contributor keep broader access.

Does the Fabric data agent support languages other than English?

Officially, no. Learn describes questions in English. The Polish and German demo agents in this repo answered correctly, but outside official support, so test your own language before you rely on it.

Do I need the cross-geo processing setting for Copilot in Fabric?

Not for capacities in the US or inside the EU Data Boundary, which covers the EU and the EFTA countries, Switzerland included. Copilot for a Swiss capacity can still run in an EU datacenter outside Switzerland. Capacities in the UK and other geographies need the setting turned on.

When does the previous ontology experience in Fabric retire?

On January 31, 2027. The new ontology in Fabric IQ, in preview, replaces it.

What is Project Osmos?

Project Osmos is the data engineering agent in Microsoft Fabric, in preview. It plans, runs, and validates data engineering tasks on SparkCore, the tasks persist, and Fabric and OneLake permissions remain the boundary of what it can do. You start it from a coding agent such as GitHub Copilot CLI.

Can I run these demos in my own Fabric tenant?

Yes. The demos folder has a Python script that creates an F8 capacity, a workspace, synthetic data, a semantic model, an eventhouse, notebooks, and a data agent, plus one runbook per recorded demo with the exact prompts and expected results. F8 costs about 1.41 EUR per hour in France Central at the Azure retail price, and the capacity can be paused when you are done.

Demo recordings

20 recordings: 18 product demos from a demo tenant with synthetic data (an oud perfume house with formulas, ingredients, and preference trials), the keynote showreel, and interviews with seven people at Microsoft. Links below play the English takes.

Run the demos in your own Fabric tenant

The demos folder rebuilds the environment behind the 18 product recordings: one Python script creates the capacity, the workspace, synthetic data, a semantic model, an eventhouse, a failing pipeline, notebooks, and a data agent. Each demo has a runbook with the exact prompts in English, Polish, and German and the result you should see.

python3 fabdemo.py up

Runs on an F8 capacity, about 1.41 EUR per hour in France Central at the Azure retail price on October 21, 2026. Pause or delete it with one command when you are done. Code under the MIT License.

Limits, stated up front

A runbook step no longer matches what Fabric shows? Report it.

About the author

dr Estera Kot is a Microsoft MVP (Data Platform), CTO at Clouds on Mars, and a former Principal PM on the Microsoft Fabric team. She attended FabCon Europe 2026 in Barcelona, and the demos ran in her own Fabric tenant on synthetic data. LinkedIn · GitHub

License: reuse it, credit the source

The slides, text, PDFs, and demo recordings are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Copy, share, and adapt them for any purpose, as long as you credit the author and link this source:

Based on "FabCon Europe 2026 recap" by dr Estera Kot, https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Not covered: the interview recording on slide 3, Microsoft product interfaces, logos, the meme image, the deck engine files, and the bundled fonts and icons. Details in NOTICE.md.