Microsoft Fabric at FabCon 2025

Security, scalability and Business Intelligence in a single platform

Author: Matteo Colli, September 2025

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From September 15 to 18, 2025, the Austria Center in Vienna hosted the European Microsoft Fabric Community Conference (FabCon Europe 2025), the largest event in Europe dedicated to Microsoft Fabric, data analytics, and artificial intelligence.

Over 4,200 professionals attended over 130 technical sessions and 10 full-day workshops, cementing FabCon as the primary meeting point for the community. A succession of new feature announcements highlighted how Microsoft Fabric is progressively evolving from a set of solutions to a unified platform, increasingly mature in supporting enterprise-scale data and artificial intelligence strategies.

All this took place in an atmosphere that fully reflected this shift: a mix of in-depth technical sessions, broader strategic discussions, and demos of new solutions, all enriched by a strong presence of technology partners and, inevitably, a very active community exchange.

And throughout it all, it was simply fantastic to see Microsoft product managers personally leading this event!

OneLake as a unified foundation

OneLake was the highlight of the event. The preview of mirroring for Oracle and Google BigQuery was announced, enabling near-real-time access to these data sources without the need for complex copy processes. Connections to Azure Blob Storage were also made available.

OneLake Security, the most notable innovation presented at FabCon 2025, introduces centralized security policies applicable to all analytics engines, including Row-level and Column-level Security capabilities. Further enhancements include OneLake Search, now faster and more intuitive for searching tables, columns, and measures, and the new Materialized Lake Views, which enable data mirroring within OneLake.

Copilot is in the spotlight

2025 represents a turning point in the integration of artificial intelligence within Microsoft Fabric, thanks in particular to the continued development of Copilot. One of the most significant innovations is the availability of Copilot on all SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), a move that opens the door to the adoption of generative AI even by smaller organizations, without the need to purchase premium licenses.

The new AI Skills, currently in preview, enable the design of custom conversational agents through a new visual interface. These agents can draw from multiple data sources and leverage advanced reasoning capabilities, significantly expanding the possibilities for intelligent automation.

Copilot capabilities now extend to Data Factory, simplifying the creation and management of pipelines.

Finally, the integration between Fabric Data Agent and Azure AI Agent Service was announced, further strengthening the synergy between AI solutions in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Data Factory, efficiency and automation are growing

The evolution of Data Factory within Microsoft Fabric aims for greater operational efficiency, openness to integration, and a higher level of automation. Among the key innovations is the new Copy Job feature, which offers a much more efficient user experience than traditional copy jobs.

Dataflow Gen2 also expands its integration capabilities with support for public REST APIs, CI/CD, and Git, offering developers an even more flexible ecosystem. Additionally, support for Apache Airflow jobs is being introduced, a key upgrade for those developing Python-based pipelines.

Significant progress has been made on the connectivity front: VNet support is now available in preview for several components, and direct integration of existing Azure Data Factories within Fabric is enabled. This enables simplified migration and the ability to manage everything from a single, centralized platform.

GraphQL and Maps: context for AI

One of the most anticipated announcements was the arrival of GraphQL in Fabric, available in preview starting October 2025. It will allow organizations to model and query complex relationships between customers, partners, or supply chains, providing a new level of context for AI agents and applications. At the same time, Maps in Fabric arrived, combining streaming analytics and geospatial capabilities to enable real-time, location-based decision making. The goal is for AI to be based not only on structured data, but also on relationships and location, enabling richer and more accurate scenarios.

Community and success stories

Beyond the technical announcements, FabCon Vienna also highlighted the value of community. The sold-out pre-conference workshops offered administrators, developers, and data scientists the opportunity to experience Fabric in real-world settings. The sessions highlighted practical improvements, such as new data warehousing features, as well as monitoring tips that many attendees found immediately useful for their daily work.

The networking atmosphere was another highlight: hallway conversations and spontaneous encounters in the community lounge helped solve real-world problems in minutes, with notebooks, experiences, and best practices openly shared.

Furthermore, the Data Viz World Championship and Power Hour offered a more creative and relaxed break, strengthening the sense of belonging to a growing community.

FabCon Europe 2025 demonstrated how Microsoft Fabric has evolved from a simple vision to a complete, mature, and production-ready platform. Key highlights included robust governance with OneLake, advanced analytics capabilities thanks to Power BI, Graph, and Maps, advanced development tools, and enterprise-level security.

All of this was enhanced by the infectious energy of a constantly expanding community, which made the Vienna experience truly memorable... See you at Barcelona 2026!