# FabCon Europe 2026 Barcelona recap

> 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.

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.

License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Credit: Based on "FabCon Europe 2026 recap" by dr Estera Kot, https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

## Slides and PDFs

- [English slides](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/): FabCon Europe 2026 Barcelona recap: what shipped in Microsoft Fabric, GA vs preview vs roadmap, with slides and demo recordings. By dr Estera Kot, Microsoft MVP. PDF: https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap-en.pdf
- [Polski slides](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/pl/): Podsumowanie FabCon Europe 2026 w Barcelonie: co dojechało w Microsoft Fabric (GA, preview, roadmapa), slajdy i nagrania demo. dr Estera Kot, Microsoft MVP. PDF: https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/pl/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap-pl.pdf
- [Deutsch slides](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/de/): Rückblick auf die FabCon Europe 2026 in Barcelona: was in Microsoft Fabric gekommen ist (GA, Preview, Roadmap), mit Folien und Demo-Aufnahmen. Von dr Estera Kot, Microsoft MVP. PDF: https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/de/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap-de.pdf

## Status of announcements (checked 2026-10-21)

- Fabric IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Cowork: GA. Business questions answered from a semantic model you control. No extra charge for AI tokens, queries still use your capacity. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/copilot/copilot-powerbi-copilot-chat
- Fabric IQ MCP server: GA. Read-only MCP server for Power BI reports and semantic models: search, metadata, and DAX queries under the signed-in user's permissions. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/iq/connectors/fabric-iq-mcp
- Fabric Core MCP server: TBC. Fabric REST operations as MCP tools. 27 tools, 15 of them write changes to workspaces, items, and permissions. Learn shows no status label. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/rest/api/fabric/articles/mcp-servers/core-remote/overview-core-mcp-server
- Data agents in Copilot Studio: TBC. A Fabric data agent as a tool for a Copilot Studio agent. Keynote: GA. The Learn walkthrough still says preview on October 21, 2026. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/data-science/data-agent-microsoft-copilot-studio
- OneLake Table Read API: PREVIEW. Apps read Delta and Iceberg tables over REST. OneLake security filters rows and columns on every request. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/onelake/table-apis/read-table-data-rest-api
- Project Osmos, the data engineering agent: PREVIEW. Plans, runs, and validates data engineering tasks on SparkCore. Tasks persist. Fabric and OneLake permissions remain the boundary. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/data-engineering/data-engineering-agent-overview
- Operations agent in Monitor hub: PREVIEW. Read-only investigation of failed pipeline runs, as the signed-in user. Needs the Contributor role and workspace monitoring. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/real-time-intelligence/operations-agent/fabric-observability-investigation-overview
- Database agents for SQL and PostgreSQL: ROADMAP. Announced at the keynote for Database Hub and VS Code, not available yet. Database Hub itself is in preview. Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/fabcon-and-sqlcon-2026-in-barcelona-building-the-data-foundation-for-microsoft-copilot-and-agents/
- Ontology in Fabric IQ: PREVIEW. Built from semantic models, OneLake data, and documents. Rules in natural language, RDF and Turtle export. The previous ontology retires January 31, 2027. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/iq/ontology/overview
- Agentic apps in Power BI Desktop: PREVIEW. Preview announced for the coming weeks. Included with Pro and PPU, up to 1 GB per app, with write-back. Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/fabcon-and-sqlcon-2026-in-barcelona-building-the-data-foundation-for-microsoft-copilot-and-agents/
- Copilot for Real-Time Intelligence: PREVIEW. A Real-Time Dashboard generated from one sentence on an eventhouse. The product shows a Preview label. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/real-time-intelligence/copilot-generate-dashboard
- OneLake security: GA. Roles, RLS, and CLS defined once and enforced across engines, also through shortcuts. GA announced for the coming weeks, with no date yet. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/onelake/security/get-started-security
- Outbound access protection: GA and PREVIEW. A workspace that blocks data from leaving. GA for OneLake shortcuts, preview for data agents. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/security/workspace-outbound-access-protection-data-agent
- Purview DLP restrict access: GA. Blocks 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: https://learn.microsoft.com/purview/dlp-powerbi-get-started
- Policies in Fabric: PREVIEW. An allow list for the tenant or a capacity. Allow is the only effect, there is no Deny. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/governance/fabric-policies-overview
- OneLake catalog Govern: GA. One admin screen for label coverage, DLP results, tenant settings, and recommended actions. Refreshes once a day. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/governance/onelake-catalog-govern
- Observability: new Monitor hub, workspace monitoring, Activator alerts: PREVIEW. Run history and success rate for every job, workspace monitoring in an eventhouse, and job alerts. Source: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/fabcon-and-sqlcon-2026-in-barcelona-building-the-data-foundation-for-microsoft-copilot-and-agents/
- OneLake catalog search API: PREVIEW. Search the whole tenant from code with POST /v1/catalog/search, also available as the search_catalog tool in Core MCP. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/rest/api/fabric/articles/onelakecatalog/overview
- AI functions in Spark: GA. ai.translate, ai.analyze_sentiment, and ai.classify in one line per column, on a built-in endpoint with no API key. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/data-science/ai-functions/overview
- Materialized lake views: GA. Silver and gold layers in SQL, with CONSTRAINT ... ON MISMATCH DROP for bad rows. Views authored in PySpark are in preview. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/data-engineering/materialized-lake-views/overview-materialized-lake-view
- Fabric data agent: GA. Natural-language questions answered with SQL, DAX, or KQL over lakehouses, warehouses, semantic models, and KQL databases. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/data-science/concept-data-agent
- OneLake table APIs: Unity Catalog API and Iceberg REST Catalog: GA. The same Delta tables read through Unity Catalog compatible and Iceberg REST Catalog endpoints, with no copy. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/onelake/table-apis/table-apis-overview

## Roadmap

- On-demand billing and F0 capacity: Coming soon, no pricing yet
- Database agents for SQL and PostgreSQL: Coming soon
- Native ontology and semantic model support in IQ sharing: On the roadmap
- Apache Ossie, a vendor-neutral ontology standard, together with Snowflake: Announced
- GA date for OneLake security: Not given
- Previous ontology experience: Retires January 31, 2027

## Admin checklist

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. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/copilot/copilot-powerbi-copilot-chat
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. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/power-bi/create-reports/copilot-semantic-models
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. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/admin/service-admin-portal-copilot
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. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/fabric/security/workspace-outbound-access-protection-data-agent

## 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.

## Recordings

- [FabCon Europe 2026 keynote showreel](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/fabcon-showreel.mp4) (26 s): Short showreel from the FabCon Europe 2026 keynote in Barcelona.
- [One question for seven people at Microsoft](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/fabcon-interviews.mp4) (103 s): You are a data engineer who has never used AI. What now? Answers from seven people at Microsoft, recorded at FabCon Europe 2026.
- [The "Fabric data in Microsoft Copilot" setting](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S05-A23-copilot-admin-setting.mp4) (12 s): The Microsoft 365 admin center setting that gives Microsoft 365 Copilot access to Power BI data, on for all users by default. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D01.md
- [The AI setting on a semantic model](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S05-A12-semantic-model-ai-setting.mp4) (11 s): The semantic model setting that lets anyone with read access use Copilot, Copilot Chat, the data agent, and MCP tools. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D02.md
- [Fabric IQ MCP server](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S08-A2-fabric-iq-mcp.mp4) (23 s): Read-only tools, model discovery, and a DAX query over a semantic model through the Fabric IQ MCP server. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D03.md
- [Fabric Core MCP server tools](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S08-A11-core-mcp-audit.mp4) (17 s): The Fabric Core MCP server lists 27 tools, 15 of which write changes. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D04.md
- [OneLake Table Read API](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S09-A17-table-read-api.mp4) (14 s): An app reads a Delta table over REST as Apache Arrow, with no cluster and with OneLake security applied. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D05.md
- [Project Osmos task in Fabric](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S10-A5-osmos.mp4) (49 s): A Project Osmos task builds a gold scorecard table: execution plan, live activity, and the resulting table. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D06.md
- [Operations agent investigates a failed pipeline](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S11-A6-operations-agent.mp4) (47 s): The operations agent explains why a pipeline run failed, straight from Monitor hub. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D07.md
- [Ontology agent in Fabric IQ](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S12-A8-ontology.mp4) (47 s): The ontology agent plans entities and relationships from a semantic model, validates the draft, and applies it. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D08.md
- [Copilot generates a Real-Time Dashboard](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S13-RTI-copilot-dashboard.mp4) (55 s): Copilot for Real-Time Intelligence builds a dashboard on an eventhouse from one sentence. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D09.md
- [OneLake security roles](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S14-A16-onelake-security.mp4) (14 s): Managing OneLake security roles on a lakehouse, including the DefaultReader role. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D10.md
- [Outbound access protection](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S14-A18-outbound-protection.mp4) (18 s): Workspace outbound access protection settings that stop data from leaving the workspace. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D11.md
- [Policies in Fabric](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S15-A13-policies.mp4) (16 s): Fabric tenant policies: an allow list scoped to the tenant or a capacity. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D12.md
- [OneLake catalog Govern](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S15-A19-catalog-govern.mp4) (20 s): The admin view of the OneLake catalog: governance insights, domains, and recommended actions. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D13.md
- [OneLake catalog search API](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S16-A20-catalog-search.mp4) (30 s): Searching the whole tenant from code with POST /v1/catalog/search and with the search_catalog tool in Core MCP. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D14.md
- [AI functions in a PySpark notebook](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S16-ai-functions.mp4) (29 s): ai.translate, ai.analyze_sentiment, and ai.classify on tester comments written in English, Arabic, and French. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D15.md
- [Materialized lake views with data quality rules](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S16-mlv-medallion.mp4) (84 s): Bronze, silver, and gold layers in SQL. Three bad rows are dropped by CONSTRAINT ... ON MISMATCH DROP. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D16.md
- [Fabric data agent answers from a lakehouse](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S16-data-agent.mp4) (45 s): A data agent answers two questions with SQL over a lakehouse, and both answers match the data. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D17.md
- [OneLake table APIs: Unity Catalog and Iceberg REST](https://ekote.github.io/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/en/media/S16-onelake-open-catalogs.mp4) (25 s): The same Delta tables read through the Unity Catalog API and the Iceberg REST Catalog. Runbook: https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/blob/main/demos/runbooks/D18.md

## Limits

- Statuses are a snapshot from October 21, 2026, checked against Microsoft Learn. Microsoft relabels features often.
- TBC means two sources disagree or Learn shows no label. The recap does not guess.
- Keynote claims are marked as keynote claims. Where Learn disagreed, the table says so.
- Four announcements have no demo. Fabric IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and the data agent in Copilot Studio need licenses the demo tenant does not have, and database agents and agentic apps had not shipped.
- All demos ran on synthetic data in one test tenant, on an F8 capacity in France Central. Portal labels move, so a runbook step can drift.
- The Polish and German data agent answers worked in the demos, but Learn describes questions in English only.

## Run the demos

- [Demo environment and runbooks](https://github.com/ekote/fabcon-barcelona-2026-recap/tree/main/demos): Python script (MIT) that rebuilds the 18 product demos in your own Microsoft Fabric tenant on synthetic data, F8 capacity.