Episode 318 – Power BI January 2026 Feature Update
Jason and John are back from their holiday hiatus with the January 2026 Power BI Feature Summary—and it’s packed with significant changes. From the official deprecation of Power BI Q&A to PBIR becoming the default report format, this episode covers the updates that will shape how you work with Power BI in 2026. Plus, there’s Copilot… everywhere. Seriously, they’re not kidding about pushing AI into every corner of the product.
Life Updates: Hawaii Bound and College Decisions
Before diving into Power BI updates, the hosts shared some personal news. Jason was counting down—just 13 days until he’d be joining John in Hawaii (by the time the episode drops, he should already be there enjoying lower humidity and warmer temperatures).
Jason also shared exciting family news: his older son has decided on a college. “We may very well have a Texas State Bobcat in our midst,” Jason announced. After visiting the San Marcos, Texas campus (delayed by a week and a half due to an ice storm), his son is 99% sure. Jason was so impressed he joked, “I’m walking around campus like, I want to go here. Why am I sending just my money? Why am I not coming?”
The night before recording, Jason attended opening night of Prince of Egypt at his son’s high school, where he’d been helping with photography and tech. “It’s cool to see this stuff come together,” he noted.
John had been at the beach for a Canadian event in Hawaii and his brother flew in from Vancouver for a week-long visit. The hosts also acknowledged they’d taken a hiatus from recording, getting busy with both work and personal commitments.
The Big Question: One Episode or Two?
Jason set expectations early: “We have the January update for both Power BI and Fabric, and we’re going to see if we can make it through in one episode. We make no commitment. You’ll know if we do or not by the end of the episode.”
Spoiler: They focused on Power BI for this episode, diving into the features that matter most.
General: Deprecations and Discontinuations
Power BI Q&A: The End of an Era
Official Deprecation Date: December 2026
The deprecation of Power BI Q&A marks a significant shift. As John explained, this was “the natural language query feature” that launched way back in 2015 when Power BI first came out.
“It was pre-AI, pre-LLM, an attempt at being able to enable natural language queries essentially so that you could ask a question of the data that you’re connected to and get a result,” John described. The results were mixed—”you had to do a lot of prep to make it work.”
Q&A was primarily exposed through Power BI dashboards (the old-style ones) and was very workspace-based. As John noted, “I don’t think it got a lot of love.”
Jason initially confused the licensing model, thinking Q&A had been a Premium feature. John corrected him: “I think it was always Pro. That was the natural language query feature.” The confusion makes sense given how Microsoft typically prices AI features.
John reminded listeners that this was the technology that tied into Cortana (remember that?). “It’s deprecated. Basically the Copilot stuff is solving that same problem.”
The only real concern? “If someone was leaning on it, now it’s going to require some extra licensing that they’re not comfortable with. That might be an issue for them, but that’s it. The Copilot stuff is certainly better.”
SSRS Report Viewer Web Part: Support Discontinuation (Not Retirement)
Support Ends: April 13, 2026
As discussed in Episode 317, this is about the SQL Server Reporting Services Report Viewer SharePoint web part—not a Power BI component.
John clarified the important distinction: “To be clear, it’s not going away, it’s just not being developed any further. It’s basically maintenance.” The download will continue to be available, but technical support ends in April.
“Not much more to say about that guy,” Jason noted. “Go listen to the previous episode and you’ll hear our full take on it.”
Power BI in Teams for 21Vianet (China)
The Power BI application is now available within Teams on the 21Vianet platform in China. Users can acquire the app from the app store or admins can centrally install it. This brings Power BI functionality to Teams users in China-specific deployments.
Copilot and AI: It’s Everywhere Now
Reference Specific Data in Copilot Chat
You can now give Copilot chat a reference to specific data instead of making it guess what you want to interrogate. John explained: “You can use reference notations. From an AI standpoint, anytime you can be a little more specific with your prompting generally, you’re going to get more consistent and better results.”
Jason’s honest take? “Very interesting. Is it though? Don’t know that one… I don’t know about you. I used to use the mobile app a lot more than I do these days. For me the need to use the web has become higher with Fabric and I’m doing more in Fabric than I was with just reporting and Power BI.”
John agreed: “This is a Power BI only thing to this point. So yeah, you may be aside from it… but for those who do, I think it’s a good thing.”
Jason concluded: “It’s interesting, but I don’t know that it’s something I’m ever going to touch. I don’t know.” His self-awareness was refreshing: “I just didn’t want to be disingenuous about it.”
Name Change: “Prepped for AI” Becomes “Approved for Copilot”
Simple rebrand. As John noted, “Instead of prepped, that’s what it means. It’s really not any more than that.”
Standalone Copilot Access on Power BI Home
This one got a reaction from both hosts. There’s now dedicated Copilot access right on the Power BI Home page.
John’s succinct take: “If you didn’t have enough Copilot buttons in your UI already, you get another one.”
Jason compared it to his frustration with Office.com: “This is something that I’ll be honest with you really bugs me in Office.com. I used to go to Office.com and it was the entry point and I loved it. I went there every day regardless. Anytime I was looking for anything, that’s where I went. Now it defaults me to Copilot and I have to go down to the bottom left, find apps, find the thing I’m looking for.”
The difference with Power BI Home? “This feels very similar, but the nice thing about it is it keeps the pane at the bottom for finding the thing you’re looking for more easily.”
John’s response: “I’d argue it brings the pain up to the top, but I know what you mean.”
Both hosts had a laugh about “spelling pain differently there.”
John also vented about another UI annoyance: “Same concept here drives me nuts is freaking Task Flows and the fact that they take over half the screen the first time you go into a workspace and got to dismiss it. Got to dismiss it. But I don’t use Task Flows and I’m not dissing Task Flows, I’m just saying I don’t use ’em. Why do I have to have ’em in my face all the time?”
The good news: This only appears if certain conditions are met. Jason appreciated this: “In order for this to show up automatically, Copilot and Standalone Copilot is enabled in your tenant and you have a valid Copilot capacity available. So if you don’t have one available to you, you’re not going to see this, which is nice.”
“It would drive me nuts to have it there and then start typing stuff and go, ‘Sorry, you can’t do this.’ Really? Come on.”
You can also switch back to the old view. Jason concluded: “Good job to the team on doing it that way.”
Reporting: Field Parameters and Format Paint Improvements
Field Parameters Persist Hierarchy Level Setting
This feature is “a bit of a reversion to behavior,” according to John. When using field parameters and switching a field parameter for a visual, it would always reset the hierarchy if you’d drilled into something like a data grid.
John’s understanding: “My impression was that they had changed that so that it would not reset it and it would maintain whatever the selection was with the new field parameter value. Reading this, you would now have the option to have the old behavior back so that you could have it reset.”
Why offer both options? “I can certainly see that when you’re changing a field parameter, the hierarchy selection that you currently got selected may not make sense for you. So having the option, I think is a good idea.”
Jason read from the blog: “To address this, we’ve added new report level setting that lets you restore the pre-July 2025 behavior for parameter expansion and collapse of hierarchy levels. By default, the levels remain persistent, but you can switch it off.”
“This is nice,” Jason noted. “I know a lot of people who do not like this feature the way that it was implemented. So this brings something really nice to the table.”
Format Paint Improvements
There’s an improved color picker experience in Power BI with better visual clarity for the currently selected color and an easy way to revert to defaults.
John summarized: “It’s easier to see the currently selected color. Before it was just, it’s going to be one of these. That’s good. And you can always go back to default very easily now. So that wasn’t there before either.”
The PBIR Revolution
While not explicitly covered in depth during the transcript excerpt, the PBIR (Power BI enhanced report format) becoming the default is one of the biggest changes in the January update.
Starting in January 2026, PBIR is being activated by default in the Power BI service as part of a phased rollout, with full availability by the end of February. The March release will set PBIR as the default in Power BI Desktop. General Availability is planned for Q3 2026.
This represents a major shift toward better Git integration, CI/CD workflows, and collaborative development—essential for enterprise teams working with source control.
The Bottom Line
The January 2026 Power BI update signals clear strategic directions from Microsoft:
- AI consolidation: Legacy natural language tools (Q&A) are being replaced by Copilot across the board
- Copilot everywhere: From Home page entry points to mobile reference capabilities, Microsoft is pushing Copilot into every interaction point
- Developer-first improvements: PBIR default rollout shows Microsoft’s commitment to modern development practices
- Flexibility through options: Features like field parameter hierarchy settings show Microsoft listening to community feedback and providing toggle options rather than forcing one-size-fits-all behavior
- UI refinements: Small improvements like color picker enhancements and format paint updates continue polishing the user experience
As Jason and John demonstrated, not every feature will resonate with every user. Jason’s honest admission about the Copilot reference feature—”I don’t know that it’s something I’m ever going to touch”—reflects the reality that enterprise BI professionals have different workflows and priorities.
The key is understanding which updates impact your specific use cases and preparing your organization for the bigger shifts (like PBIR) that will affect everyone eventually.
Links
Power BI Blog Posts:
- Power BI January 2026 Feature Summary
- PBIR Will Become the Default Power BI Report Format
- Power BI Report Server January 2026 Feature Summary
Previous Episodes:
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