Microsoft announces Fabric IQ, a new intelligence layer that transforms Fabric from a data platform into an intelligence platform. The system combines an ontology model, semantic models, and AI agents to convert business data into real-time decision-making.
According to Microsoft, organizations are drowning in data without understanding the semantics. For example, an airline does not think in terms of tables and schedules, but in terms of flights, passengers, and delays. However, that meaning lives in people’s minds. Teams use their own definitions and reports. AI systems can read data, but they lack the business context to make reliable decisions.
Fabric IQ solves this with a high-level ontology model. This is a model that captures what is important, how things are related, and what actions are possible. The ontology links to live data in OneLake via various engines for analytics, real-time, time series, and geographic data.
The system builds on existing Power BI models. More than 20 million semantic models form the starting point. The company promises that organizations can start their ontology from these models with just a few clicks.
Operations Agent makes decisions
The Operations Agent feature marks a shift toward autonomous decision-making. This AI agent continuously monitors, evaluates considerations, and automatically executes actions. The system learns from each result and thus improves the next decision.
Microsoft emphasizes that human approval remains part of the process. Organizations determine for themselves what runs automatically and what requires manual control. “This is not alerting. This is not workflow automation. This is agentic AI with business understanding, decision-making authority, and grounding in real-time business context,” Microsoft said in its announcement at its Ignite 2025 conference.
Integration with broader Microsoft stack
Fabric IQ works with Foundry IQ in Microsoft AI Foundry and Work IQ in Microsoft 365. This combination forms an intelligence layer over business data, documents, and communications. Developers can build agents that immediately understand the business context without extensive prompt engineering.
Microsoft compares the strategy to the launch of Office thirty years ago. At that time, the company bundled separate products such as Word and Excel into an integrated platform. Fabric IQ follows the same route for data and AI services.
Some of the new features are already available. The Ontology feature is entering private beta, while Real-Time Intelligence is getting new features, including Fabric Graph and Maps updates. Microsoft has not announced any new licensing fees for existing Fabric users.