Lantern AI Leaders Newsletter

Microsoft Fabric – The Data Platform for AI

AI is only as effective as the data foundation beneath it. Microsoft Fabric is that foundation – bringing together real-time analytics, data engineering, and governance into a unified platform designed for the AI era.

At Lantern, we believe Fabric is essential for organizations serious about scaling AI. In this edition, we explain why Fabric is foundational for AI, share key takeaways from FabCon 2025, and highlight how Microsoft’s data strategy is evolving to support real-time intelligence, security, and broad AI adoption. 

Fabric supports:

• A unified data experience from ingestion to insight
• AI-ready architecture for building agents, copilots, and automation
• Scalable governance to protect sensitive data in complex environments
  

For organizations working towards enterprise AI adoption, Fabric is the foundation.

What matters most to AI leaders coming out of the event:

1. Agentic AI is Here

Fabric now integrates directly with Azure AI Foundry, allowing you to create data agents – AI assistants grounded in your enterprise data. These agents don’t just retrieve data, they reason over it, understand context, and generate intelligent actions in real time. For leaders, exploring AI-driven operations, support, or automation, this is a blueprint for real-world deployment.

2. OneLake Security is a Breakthrough

Data governance has long been the Achilles’ heel of scalable AI. With OneLake Security, Microsoft is offering a true unified security model across all Fabric workloads. Define access once – enforce it across SQL, Lakehouse, Copilot, and Power BI.

For AI leaders, this means faster innovation with lower governance friction. 

3. AI for Everyone, Not Just Power Users

Microsoft just announced that Copilot and AI capabilities are now available across all Fabric SKUs, making advanced AI tools accessible to every team. This removes a major barrier to adoption and allows organizations to scale AI experimentation and adoption without a steep licensing ramp-up.

Real-Time Intelligence: Powering AI with Live Data

AI is only as powerful as the data behind it and increasingly, that means data in motion. That’s where Microsoft Fabric’s Real-Time Intelligence shines. It enables organizations to stream, process, and act on data as it happens – whether it’s a transaction, an IoT signal, or a customer interaction.

What makes this different is how Fabric brings real-time ingestion, analytics, and automation into the same environment as your reporting, machine learning, and AI agents.

Here’s what it unlocks: 

• A logistics team rerouting trucks in real-time based on weather and traffic feeds
• A financial institution flagging fraud within seconds of a transaction
• A healthcare provider triggering alerts based on live telemetry from medical devices

With Fabric, real-time data is actionable, intelligent, and AI-ready. You can feed it directly into AI models, use it to power Copilot experiences, or let it activate workflows in Power Automate. That kind of immediacy transforms how decisions are made and how businesses respond.

For AI leaders, this is a signal: if your platform isn’t built for real-time data, it’s not built for AI.

Power BI Premium is Being Replaced by Fabric

Microsoft is phasing out Power BI Premium licensing and replacing it with Fabric licensing. If your organization uses Power BI Premium, you will need to transition to Fabric. If you’re ready to modernize your data platform to enable AI at scale, that’s where Lantern can help.

Schedule a Fabric Readiness Workshop

Lantern is helping customers assess their data architecture, understand Fabric licensing and features, and build a roadmap to modernize their data estate with AI in mind.

Our Fabric Readiness Workshop includes:

• A review of your Power BI and data platform usage
• Guidance on SKU selection and migration strategy
• An AI-forward roadmap using Fabric as your foundation

Let’s talk about how your data estate can become your AI advantage.

Register for a Fabric Workshop