Fabric IQ for Data Professionals
📅 Tuesday, July 21, 2026 ⏰ 7:30 – 9:00 AM PT | 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM ET | 2:30 – 4:00 PM GMT | 3:30 – 5:00 PM WAT | 8:00 – 9:30 PM IST 📺 Free YouTube Livestream with Full Replay
This is Session 4 of the Microsoft Fabric Location Intelligence & Security User Group Data Days series, running June through August 2026. 🎙️
⚡ TIMELY: Fabric IQ reached general availability at Microsoft Build 2026 in June. This session is your practical introduction to what it is, what it means for data professionals, and how to start building with it now.
AI agents are only as good as the data and context they can reason over. Fabric IQ is Microsoft's answer to that problem: a shared semantic and ontological layer that gives both humans and AI agents a single, governed understanding of how your business operates.
But getting there requires data professionals to think differently about how they prepare, model, and contextualize data. This session explores what Fabric IQ is, how ontologies work, and what data professionals need to do to make their Fabric environments AI-ready.
📍 WHAT THIS SESSION COVERS
Most AI projects stall not because of the model, but because of the data foundation underneath it. This session focuses on the preparation, context, and semantic layer that separates working AI from fragile AI — and shows how Fabric IQ makes that foundation accessible inside Microsoft Fabric.
📋 TOPICS
🟣 What Is Fabric IQ and Why Does It Matter Now • Fabric IQ as the intelligence layer within the Microsoft IQ umbrella • How Fabric IQ models how the business operates, semantically and structurally • The three components of Fabric IQ: semantic models, ontologies, and the operational context layer • How Fabric IQ connects to Microsoft Agent 365 as a first-party MCP tool • Why general availability at Build 2026 is a signal that data professionals need to act now • Fabric IQ versus Power BI semantic models: what is the same and what is new
🟢 Semantic Models as the Foundation • What a Power BI semantic model is and how it becomes a Fabric IQ building block • Designing semantic models that AI agents can trust and traverse • Governed metrics, consistent definitions, and why conflicting business logic breaks agents • How semantic models expose governed Fabric data to Microsoft 365 Copilot, Cowork, and Copilot Chat • Turning static dashboards into agent-ready intelligence: detecting metric changes, triggering follow-ups, and scheduling next steps
🟠 Ontologies: Business Context for AI Agents • What an ontology is in plain language and why it matters for agentic AI • How Fabric IQ Ontologies define business entities and their relationships • The difference between what a semantic model knows and what an ontology understands • Practical example: how an ontology connects Revenue to Customer, Product, Region, and Contract Type so an agent can reason across them • Ontologies in preview: what is available now, what is coming, and how to start preparing • Accessing Fabric IQ Ontologies from Microsoft Foundry as knowledge sources for custom and built-in agents • Operational context: connecting ontologies to live signals from Real-Time Intelligence
🔵 Building an AI-Ready Data Foundation in Fabric • The four core capabilities Microsoft Fabric delivers for an AI-ready data foundation • Data unification in OneLake as the starting point for Fabric IQ • Why data without shared semantics will fall short for agentic AI use cases • Entity resolution and consistency: ensuring agents do not encounter conflicting definitions • Data lineage and auditability as requirements for trusted AI outputs • How location intelligence and geospatial context fit into an ontology and semantic layer • Common gaps organizations discover when they audit their AI readiness in Fabric
🩷 Practical Takeaways • Where to start with Fabric IQ if you have existing Power BI semantic models • The Fabric IQ workload in the Workload Hub and how to enable it in your tenant • Certification and skill paths: DP-600 and DP-700 as the foundation, DP-750 as the emerging Fabric architect credential • Resources: Microsoft Learn Fabric IQ documentation, Build 2026 on-demand sessions, and community channels
👥 WHO SHOULD ATTEND
This session is for data professionals who want to understand Fabric IQ and prepare their data environments for agentic AI, including:
✅ Fabric Analytics Engineers and Data Engineers building semantic models ✅ Power BI Developers expanding into the Fabric IQ and agentic AI layer ✅ Fabric Architects designing AI-ready data foundations ✅ Data Governance professionals responsible for semantic consistency and lineage ✅ Anyone curious about how ontologies, agents, and Fabric work together in practice
No prior AI or ontology experience required. 🛠️
📺 FORMAT
Interactive YouTube livestream with full replay available after the event. Bring your questions — this session includes live Q&A and is designed to make Fabric IQ accessible to data professionals at every level.
ℹ️ ABOUT THIS SERIES
This session is part of the Microsoft Fabric Location Intelligence & Security User Group Data Days series, a set of focused 90-minute sessions running June through August 2026 on YouTube.
Series arc: 📍 June 23: Location Intelligence with Maps and GeoAnalytics in Microsoft Fabric 🌿 June 30: Get to Know Esri: From Living Atlas to Spatial Analysis for Fabric Users 🔐 July 7: Data and AI Security and Governance in Microsoft Fabric 🧠 July 21: Fabric IQ for Data Professionals 📊 August 4: KQL for Data and Security Professionals
The Microsoft Fabric Location Intelligence & Security User Group is not affiliated with or run by the Microsoft Fabric Community or the Fabric User Group Network.