After every big Microsoft event I get the same question from colleagues and readers: “Is that actually available yet, or is it still preview?” With FabCon and SQLCon Barcelona 2026 at the end of September, Build earlier in the year and a monthly feature summary on top, it’s genuinely hard to keep track. I’m building an AI-ready data lake on Microsoft Fabric, and I need to know which features I can put into production and which I should only pilot. So I’ve pulled together the features that matter most, each checked against Microsoft’s own sources.
This isn’t a complete list of everything in Fabric. It focuses on the major recent announcements: Fabric IQ and ontologies, data agents, OneLake shortcuts and mirroring, Real-Time Intelligence, SQL database in Fabric, Graph, Maps, MCP and the platform features around them.
How to read this table
I checked every status on 2 October 2026 against official Microsoft sources only: the Microsoft Fabric Updates blog, the September 2026 Fabric feature summary, Microsoft Learn’s “What’s new in Microsoft Fabric” page and product documentation, and the Azure blog posts for FabCon Barcelona and Build 2026. Each row links to its source so you can check it yourself.
- GA means generally available, which Microsoft describes as ready for production with standard support.
- Public Preview means anyone can try it, under preview terms. Microsoft’s posts usually just say “Preview”.
- Private Preview means invitation only. None of the features below are listed that way in the sources I used.
- Announced means Microsoft has introduced it, but it’s “coming soon”, “in the coming weeks” or has no stated status yet.
- Check means official sources disagree or don’t give a clear status. Verify these before you plan around them.
Statuses change quickly, and preview features can also vary by region and tenant settings. Treat this as a snapshot, not a contract.
Fabric features and their status
| Feature | Workload/Area | Status | What it does | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fabric IQ in Microsoft Copilot Chat and Cowork | Fabric IQ / Copilot | GA | Grounds Copilot answers in governed Power BI semantic models and reports, without additional AI token costs. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Fabric blog: Fabric Analytics at FabCon Europe 2026 |
| Fabric IQ workload (overall) | Fabric IQ | Check | Shared business-context layer over OneLake, semantic models and ontologies. Announced as GA at Build 2026, but Learn still labels the workload preview. | Fabric blog: Fabric IQ, the shared context layer Microsoft Learn: What is Fabric IQ? |
| Ontology | Fabric IQ | Public Preview | Defines business entities, relationships, properties and rules that people and agents can reason over consistently. | Microsoft Learn: Ontology overview Fabric blog: Fabric IQ, the shared context layer |
| Agentic ontology creation and natural-language rules | Fabric IQ | Announced | Generates ontologies from semantic models, OneLake data and documents; rules written in natural language; reuses Power BI measures. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Fabric blog: Trusted AI starts with Fabric, RTI and IQ |
| Fabric IQ MCP Server | Fabric IQ | GA | Lets MCP-compatible AI clients discover Power BI reports and semantic models and run DAX queries against authorised models. | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary Fabric blog: Fabric Analytics at FabCon Europe 2026 |
| Planning in Fabric IQ | Fabric IQ | Check | Plans, budgets and forecasts on semantic models with writeback. Learn lists GA (July 2026); the September OneLake post still says “(Preview)”. | Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric Fabric blog: What’s new in OneLake (Barcelona 2026) |
| Graph in Microsoft Fabric | Fabric IQ | GA | Relationship-first graph engine on OneLake data, queried with standard GQL. | Fabric blog: Graph in Fabric (GA) Azure Blog: Microsoft Build 2026 |
| Fabric data agent | Data Science / Fabric IQ | GA | Conversational Q&A over lakehouses, warehouses, semantic models and KQL databases. | Microsoft Learn: Fabric data agent concepts |
| Fabric data agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio | Data agents | GA | Adds Fabric data agents as tools in Copilot Studio agents, publishable to Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot. | Fabric blog: Data agents in Copilot Studio (GA) Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric |
| Ontology as a context source for data agents | Data agents | Public Preview | Data agents use ontology mappings, synonyms and relationships for more accurate, explainable queries. | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| Build agent with AI | Data agents | Public Preview | AI-assisted creation of data agents from semantic models, documentation and glossaries. | Microsoft Learn: Build agent with AI Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 |
| Operations agents | Real-Time Intelligence | GA | Monitor live data, reason over business context and recommend or trigger actions. | Azure Blog: Microsoft Build 2026 Fabric blog: Fabric IQ, the shared context layer |
| Data engineering agent (Project Osmos) | Data Engineering | Public Preview | Plans, executes and validates long-running work such as migrations and complex ETL within engineer-set guardrails. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| IQ sharing | OneLake | Check | Shares governed data and business context across teams, customers and partners. The FabCon post says “now in preview”; the OneLake post says “in preview soon”. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Fabric blog: What’s new in OneLake (Barcelona 2026) |
| OneLake shortcuts to SharePoint and OneDrive | OneLake | GA | Brings SharePoint and OneDrive files into OneLake without moving or duplicating them. | Azure Blog: Microsoft Build 2026 |
| Salesforce Data Cloud 360 bidirectional integration | OneLake | Public Preview | Makes Salesforce data part of OneLake through shortcuts, without copying it. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Fabric blog: What’s new in OneLake (Barcelona 2026) |
| Outbound access protection for OneLake shortcuts | OneLake / Security | GA | Lets admins control which external sources and endpoints shortcuts in a workspace can connect to. | Fabric blog: What’s new in OneLake (Barcelona 2026) Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| Mirroring for Google BigQuery | OneLake / Mirroring | GA | Replicates BigQuery data into OneLake for analytics and AI. | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary Microsoft Learn: Mirroring overview |
| Mirroring for SharePoint List | OneLake / Mirroring | GA | Mirrors SharePoint lists into OneLake. | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric |
| Snowflake security roles replication | OneLake / Mirroring | Public Preview | Carries Snowflake roles and permissions into OneLake security for mirrored data. | Fabric blog: What’s new in OneLake (Barcelona 2026) Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| OneLake Table Read API | OneLake | Public Preview | Serverless, security-trimmed reads of Delta and Iceberg tables for agents and apps, without SQL. | Fabric blog: What’s new in OneLake (Barcelona 2026) Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| OneLake catalog in Excel | OneLake | Public Preview | Discover and analyse governed Fabric data from Excel with OneLake security applied. | Fabric blog: Build, deploy and govern Fabric at scale |
| Real-Time Dashboard | Real-Time Intelligence | GA | Live dashboards over streaming and Eventhouse data. | Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric |
| Business Events | Real-Time Intelligence | GA | Publishes business moments as shared signals that apps, workflows and agents can consume. | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric |
| Copilot creation of Real-Time Dashboards | Real-Time Intelligence / Copilot | Public Preview | Generates a Real-Time Dashboard from a natural-language description of what you want to monitor. | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| Fabric Maps | Real-Time Intelligence | GA | Geospatial visualisation of real-time Eventhouse and historical Lakehouse data. | Fabric blog: Trusted AI starts with Fabric (Maps GA) |
| Fabric Maps in Real-Time Dashboards | Real-Time Intelligence | Public Preview | Adds a published Fabric Map as a dashboard tile. | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric |
| SQL database in Fabric | Databases | GA | SaaS operational (OLTP) database built on the Azure SQL Database engine. | Fabric blog: SQL database in Fabric (GA) |
| Vector indexes (DiskANN) in SQL database in Fabric | Databases | GA | High-performance vector search inside the database engine for RAG and semantic search. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric |
| Database Hub | Databases | Public Preview | One control plane to monitor and govern SQL Server, Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB and SQL database in Fabric. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| Database agents | Databases | Check | AI agents that analyse database signals and recommend fixes. The FabCon post says “soon available in preview”; the September summary labels it “(Preview)”. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| Materialized lake views | Data Engineering | GA | Helps teams build reliable, reusable data products in the lakehouse. | Fabric blog: Fabric Analytics at FabCon Europe 2026 |
| GPU-accelerated query execution | Data Warehouse | Public Preview | NVIDIA-accelerated execution for analytical queries, with no changes to data or SQL. | Fabric blog: Fabric Analytics at FabCon Europe 2026 |
| Agentic app creation in Power BI Desktop | Power BI / Fabric Apps | Announced | Generate, edit and publish data apps from a semantic model in natural language. Preview due “in the coming weeks”. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 |
| Fabric Apps backend with the Rayfin SDK | Fabric Apps | Public Preview | Open-source SDK and CLI for developers and coding agents to build and deploy governed app backends on Fabric. | Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 |
| Fabric Core MCP Server | Platform | Check | Remote MCP server that lets AI agents manage workspaces and items and search the OneLake catalog. September summary says GA; Learn’s preview list still shows Preview. | Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric |
| Observability in Fabric | Platform | Public Preview | Unified workspace monitoring, refreshed Monitor Hub and AI-assisted investigation across the estate. | Azure Blog: FabCon & SQLCon 2026 Fabric blog: Build, deploy and govern Fabric at scale |
| On-demand billing and Fabric zero-provisioned (F0) | Platform / Capacity | Announced | Pay only for compute used, and start without provisioning capacity. Preview due “in the coming weeks”. | Fabric blog: Build, deploy and govern Fabric at scale Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
| Capacity overage | Platform / Capacity | GA | Uses extra paid compute above capacity, with spending thresholds and notifications. | Fabric blog: Build, deploy and govern Fabric at scale Microsoft Learn: What’s new in Fabric |
| Policies in Fabric | Governance | Public Preview | Attribute-based controls for item creation and workspace security, with external sharing coming. | Fabric blog: Build, deploy and govern Fabric at scale Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary |
What stands out
1. The AI-facing layer is GA; the modelling layer underneath is still maturing
Fabric IQ in Copilot Chat and Cowork, the Fabric IQ MCP Server, data agents and data agents in Copilot Studio are all generally available. Ontology, which provides much of the richer business context, is still in public preview. In practice, your production AI experiences today will lean mostly on well-built Power BI semantic models. That’s good news, because most organisations already have them.
2. The core data foundation is solid
SQL database in Fabric, Graph, Maps, Real-Time Dashboards, materialized lake views and a growing list of mirroring sources, including Google BigQuery and SharePoint lists, are GA. If you’re designing a lakehouse or operational data layer now, you can build on these with confidence.
3. The agentic engineering tools are for pilots
The data engineering agent, Build agent with AI, observability in Fabric and the Database Hub are all in preview. They look genuinely useful, especially for migration and monitoring work, but I’d trial them in a development workspace with clear guardrails before giving them anything important.
4. Read the small print on “Check” rows
Five features are marked “Check” because official sources disagree. For example, Fabric IQ was announced as generally available at Build 2026, yet Microsoft Learn still describes the IQ workload as preview. The September summary lists the Fabric Core MCP Server as GA, while Learn’s preview list hasn’t caught up. Usually the documentation is just lagging, but when production support matters, ask your Microsoft contact or check the Fabric roadmap before committing.
5. Billing is changing, but not yet
On-demand billing and the zero-provisioned F0 capacity could change how smaller teams start with Fabric, and capacity overage is already GA. On-demand billing and F0, though, are still listed as coming in the next few weeks. I’m not changing any capacity plans until they’re actually available in preview.
6. OneLake keeps opening up, with governance first
Outbound access protection for shortcuts is GA. The newer ways in and out of OneLake are still in preview: the Table Read API, Salesforce Data Cloud 360 integration and Snowflake security roles replication. I like that order. Control over where shortcuts can connect is exactly what a security team will ask about first, long before anyone asks about new connectors.
How I’m using this on my own Fabric lake
My rule is simple: production pipelines and anything business users rely on run only on GA features. Preview features go into a separate workspace with a named owner and an exit plan, so if a preview changes or is withdrawn, nothing critical breaks. Right now that means mirroring, materialized lake views, SQL database in Fabric and well-documented semantic models in production, with ontology and the data engineering agent in a sandbox where we can learn without risk.
I’ll revisit this table as statuses change. If you spot a status that’s moved, check the linked source first, because that’s where the truth lives.
Sources
- FabCon and SQLCon 2026 in Barcelona: Building the data foundation for Microsoft Copilot and agents (Microsoft Azure Blog)
- Fabric September 2026 Feature Summary (Microsoft Fabric Updates blog)
- What’s new in Microsoft Fabric (Microsoft Learn)
- Microsoft Fabric roadmap
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