Recent News in Analytics and AI: May 2025 Edition

This month's summary of recent news in analytics and AI details the preview of Translytical task flows in Power BI and Microsoft Fabric, data on the improved productivity results gained using Copilot, exactly what a Frontier Firm is, and how to become one, and more.

Read on and get up to speed.

Power BI

• You may know that when Choosing Between Import Mode, Direct Lake, and Composite Models was presented at Fabric Conf 2025, it wasn't recorded. However, you can now access the full material because the Direct Lake + Import composite model has been released. This release has the potential to significantly improve the performance of you semantic models compared the the previosu options. You can watch a video that deep dives into the feaure over at SQLBI. Learn more.

• Microsoft Power BI has released the preview of Translytical task flows. Dubbed a major evolution, this is going to allow you to automate your actions directly within your report. Creating the option to update records and trigger workflows in other systems, this development allows you to completely streamline your decision-making process. Learn more.

• For recent developments of Copilot inside Power BI, we now have the preview of Chat with your Data. The new chat with your data experience can be found on the left-hand side navigation of Fabric. It allows you to source and ask questions about the data you have stored, enabling you to find the right data you need a lot faster. Learn more.

• Since the preview of datamarts in Power BI was announced, Microsoft has been listening carefully. Taking real feedback onboard to better the product, they have unified datamarts with data warehouses in Microsoft Fabric. This means you get access to rich SQL security, the ability to query data across multiple databases, and more for a more streamlined yet comprehensive experience. The downside is that datamarts will be retired in October 2025. Learn more.

Microsoft Fabric

• We saw the preview of Azure Key Vault support in Fabric data connections arrive. With it, comes the launch of 'Azure Key Vault references' in Microsoft Fabric. This new capability will allow you to use Azure key vault secrets for authentication directly, rather than having to copy and paste passwords. This new experience helps to simplify CI/CD and lifecycle management in Fabric. Learn more.

• Microsoft announced that Fabric Spark's Native Execution Engine (NEE) is generally available and included in Fabric Runtime 1.3. It's a vectorized engine, based on C++, that runs Spark workloads directly on the lakehouse. It requires no code changes, meaning that any existing Spark queries you have will now run faster. Learn more.

• Want to increase your productivity and enjoy more ease when completing tasks? Using generative AI tools is shown to allow for this, according to a new study. Microsoft revealed this is why they've had Copilot functionality inside Fabric since day one. Their research suggests that those using it complete tasks 52% faster. Learn more.

• Dataflows Gen2 now inlcudes SharePoint files as a destination which makes it easier for you to extend existing workflows that require this for data accessibility. This is one or many new file-based destinations that will be coming to Dataflows Gen2 in the coming months. Learn more.

Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio

• The Researcher and Analyst agents inside the Frontier Program are your go-tos for saving time and making more effective decisions in your work. The benefits of using them? Researcher is there to get deeper insights for you, saving you hours of doing it yourself. Analyst makes sense of data for you, so that you don't have to make complex conclusions. Using both together is a no-brainer for ease and efficiency. Learn more.

• Increased productivity, more efficient ways of doing things, and a lot more ease seem to be the things of the moment. It's what we're all looking for. It also happens to be exactly what the agents inside of Microsoft 365 Copilot are here to help you build. Read on to discover case studies of how real businesses are using this to improve the way they work. Learn more.

• Microsoft 365 Copilot Tuning was announced at Microsoft Build 2025. For businesses that don't have data scientists or weeks to program and develop, this newly launched low-code capability is genius. It gives you the ability to tune AI models using your data, workflows, and processes. The result? Agents closely aligned with the way you work, without the need for code. Learn more.

• Advanced approvals were launched as a public preview. Available in agent flows, this gives you the ability to design complex and robust approval workflows that are a reflection of the real-world way you work. It could be a single decision or a cross-departmental process; either way, you get more flexibility and an easier way of doing it. Learn more.

Azure Analytics and AI

• If, like tens of thousands of businesses, you use AI agents regularly in your business, you may be ready for more sophisticated advancements. This is what the launch of Agent2Agent (A2A), which will soon be available in both Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio, aims to do. Providing agents with the ability to collaborate across platforms and clouds. Read on to discover an example of how two agents can collaborate in this way. Learn more.

• AI agents in themselves are becoming more and more fundamental to the way businesses work. In this Work Trend Index Annual Report, '2025: The Year the Frontier Firm Is Born', Microsoft details the way that leaders and businesses need to adapt to stay ahead. Take a look at the insights to see just how powerful an agent-led business can be in your field. Learn more.

• So, it seems that the 'Frontier Firm' is very much the business of the future. To become one, you need the right systems and structures. This is exactly what Azure databases aim to do. Further database announcements at Microsoft Build 2025 give you the opportunity to get deeper insight and a more personalised experience. If you want to streamline operations, building a solid database foundation with Azure is how you'll do it. Learn more.

• Alongside the right databases, you need the capability to do more with your data. This is where empowering your developers comes in. The newly announced tools in Fabric that were announced at Build 2025 have been launched to ensure your teams are equipped and ready to support your business development into a Frontier Firm. Learn more.

Open-Source Analytics and AI

• If you found snags in managing tables in Iceberg and Delta Lake (Lakehouse), you'll be pleased to see this latest update from DuckLake. A newly added catalog service by DuckDB (with the support of a database) now means that you can manage multiple tables with ease. Learn more.

• Meta FAIR is sharing new research into molecular property prediction, language processing, and neuroscience, as part of their commitment to advanced machine intelligence (AMI). This work includes the newly announced Open Molecules 2025, a dataset for advancing molecular discovery. If you're keen to stay informed on the latest research and development in the AI space, this one's an interesting read for you. Learn more.

• The Unity Catalog blog provides a deep dive into managed and external tables to help you understand both functionalities. Whether you want the simplicity you get when using managed tables, more control with external tables, or a combination of both, Unity Catalog can help you get the best from both. Learn more.

• Following on from our coverage of the Velox Primer series, Part 3 has been published. It focuses on the consumer side of a shuffle operation and dives into concepts such as Dictionary Magic and how the LocalPartition and LocalExchange operators work together to achieve efficient memory access patterns. Learn more.

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