I recently explained how providers addressing the full combination of artificial intelligence and data requirements through integrated AI and data platforms are increasingly attractive as enterprises look to accelerate initiatives and reduce costs and complexity. One example of a software provider that has combined AI and data capabilities is Microsoft with its Fabric data platform. First introduced in May 2023, Microsoft Fabric delivered a single environment, based on the foundation of an enterprise-wide data lake, for data integration, data engineering, data warehousing, real-time analytics, business intelligence and data science. Microsoft Fabric has been further expanded with two significant additions addressing operational database and data intelligence workloads, as well as database management that spans the wider database estate.
Microsoft is well-established as a provider of data platforms and analytics products, with a diverse portfolio that addresses databases, data integration, data management, data governance, business intelligence, artificial intelligence and machine learning—both on-premises and via its Azure cloud service. While the company continues to deliver standalone products that address each of these requirements, Microsoft Fabric is a prime example of how enterprise software providers are combining functionality from previously discrete products into AI and data platforms. First introduced at the company’s Build event for developers and engineers in May 2023, Microsoft Fabric is a unified data and analytics platform designed to provide a single environment and experience for data persistence, data processing, data integration, data engineering, analytics and data science. The breadth of functionality available with Microsoft Fabric is illustrated by the product being assessed in ISG’s 2025 Buyers Guides for Data Management, DataOps and Real-Time Data and the 2026 Buyers Guide for AI and Data Platforms. Microsoft Fabric’s Power BI functionality was also assessed in the 2025 ISG Buyers Guide for Analytics. Microsoft added new capabilities to Fabric with two major announcements in November 2025, including the general availability of SQL Database in Fabric to support operational data platform requirements. Also new in November 2025 was the preview release of Fabric IQ, a unified data intelligence layer combining semantic modeling, ontology and knowledge graph capabilities to support agentic AI workloads. More recently, the company has provided early access to functionality that enables Fabric users to manage their entire Microsoft database estate.
The general availability in November 2025 of Fabric Databases was a significant recent addition to Microsoft Fabric, providing transactional data platform capabilities that enable Fabric to support intelligent operational applications alongside analytics workloads supported by Fabric Data Warehouse. Fabric Databases includes Cosmos DB in Microsoft Fabric, based on Microsoft’s Azure Cosmos DB distributed NoSQL database, as well as SQL database in Microsoft Fabric, which is based on the same SQL database engine as Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. The addition of SQL database capabilities to Microsoft Fabric enables support for transactional workloads used to run the business, while automated data replication and conversion in OneLake ensures the data is available to other Fabric experiences used to create data pipelines, analyze the business and serve AI workloads. SQL database in Fabric delivers support for vector data types and Retrieval-Augmented Generation, integration with AI frameworks and the operationalization of curated data from analytic engines using reverse ETL. These are among the evolving requirements for operational data platforms I identified late last year. SQL database in Fabric also addresses other capabilities discussed in that analyst perspective, including integration with continuous integration and continuous development processes, as well as automated provisioning, performance and scalability features.
In March this year, Microsoft further expanded its Fabric database capabilities with the addition of early access to Database Hub in Fabric, which is designed to provide a single interface for managing an enterprise’s entire estate of Microsoft databases. Database Hub in Fabric enables database administrators to monitor and govern Azure SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, SQL Server on Azure Arc, Azure Database for MySQL and Fabric Databases. Microsoft also launched the preview of Migration Assistant for SQL databases to facilitate database migration from SQL Server to Fabric, complementing existing Migration Assistant functionality for data warehousing, data science, real-time data and analytics workloads to Fabric. Additionally, November 2025 saw the preview release of Fabric IQ, which provides a semantic layer that delivers a combination of knowledge graph, ontology and agreed semantic definitions to provide a shared operational view of business entities, relationships and rules, as well as collaborative planning and reporting. Fabric IQ enables the reuse of existing Power BI semantic models as well as the creation of new semantic models and ontologies and is designed to enable users to better understand and operate the business, while also providing a foundation of business context that can be understood and acted upon by autonomous AI agents.
Following the initial launch of Microsoft Fabric, I noted it was not clear how users of existing products would be able to migrate workloads to the environment. The addition of Migration Assistant capabilities has illustrated significant progress in that regard, while Database Hub in Fabric is illustrative of the central role that Fabric has in relation to existing Microsoft data and analytics products. I assert that through 2028, three-quarters of enterprises will adopt data fabric technologies to facilitate the management and processing of data across multiple data platforms and cloud environments. As such, I recommend that enterprises exploring options for data platforms, data management, analytics and AI include Microsoft Fabric in their evaluations.
Regards,
Matt Aslett