Cole Tramp's Microsoft Insights

Overview: What Is the Fabric Data Agent?

The Microsoft Fabric Data Agent is a built-in capability within Microsoft Fabric that allows organizations to create conversational, AI-powered Q&A systems over structured data stored in OneLake. It empowers users to ask plain-English questions and receive accurate, relevant answers directly from trusted datasets, without requiring coding, query languages, or advanced analytics knowledge.

By integrating generative AI with structured data sources, the Data Agent reduces friction between people and insights. This enables faster, smarter, and more inclusive decision-making across the business.

Key Business Use Cases

1. Empower Non-Technical Users

With Fabric Data Agent, business users can independently ask questions like "What are the top-performing regions this year?" and receive a context-aware, data-backed response. This removes dependency on analysts for everyday insights and speeds up decision cycles.

2. Accelerate Decision-Making

The agent can answer complex questions quickly using live data from OneLake. Executives, managers, and teams can get immediate answers instead of waiting for custom dashboards or reports.

3. Align AI Responses with Business Context

Each agent can be customized through:

• Instructions that guide tone and purpose
• Examples that show how questions might be asked and answered
• Structured data sources that define the scope of valid responses

This ensures the system understands your organizational terminology and delivers responses that reflect your business logic.

4. Promote Data-Driven Culture

By lowering the barrier to accessing and interpreting data, Fabric Data Agent fosters curiosity, encourages data literacy, and spreads insight generation across more roles in the organization.

What Problems Does It Solve?

How It Works

The Data Agent is created, configured, and used entirely within Microsoft Fabric. It relies on three key components:

• Structured Data Sources. These include Lakehouse tables, Data Warehouse tables, and Power BI semantic models stored in OneLake.
• Custom Instructions and Examples. These guide how the agent interprets questions and responds.
• Natural Language Interface. A chat-like environment where users type questions and get answers.

Important: Fabric Data Agent currently supports only structured data. It does not work with unstructured content such as documents, PDFs, or raw text files.

Setting Up a Fabric Data Agent at a High Level

Step 1: Create the Agent

In Microsoft Fabric, go to a Workspace and Select New item. Search for and select Data Agent, then click New agent. Provide a name and optional description.

Step 2: Add Data Sources

Connect the agent to structured datasets within OneLake, such as:

• Lakehouse tables
• Warehouse tables
• Power BI semantic models

Step 3: Configure Instructions and Examples

Define how the agent should behave by adding:

• Instructions to guide its tone and purpose
• Examples to show how users might ask and expect responses

These inputs tailor the experience to your business needs.

Step 4: Test and Share

Use the built-in chat interface to test the agent. When ready, publish and share it with departments or individuals who need on-demand access to insights.

Final Thoughts

The Microsoft Fabric Data Agent is a transformative feature that brings natural language analytics directly to the data layer. By removing technical barriers and enabling real-time conversations with enterprise data, it allows teams to ask better questions and act faster.

Whether you're streamlining operations, accelerating strategy, or empowering non-technical users, Fabric Data Agent is a simple but powerful way to unlock more value from the data you already have.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Linkedin!