Apps in Power BI: what Microsoft announced, and what is not settled yet

At FabCon Europe in Barcelona, on 29 September, Microsoft announced "apps in Power BI". Not only for companies with a Fabric capacity, but also for Power BI Pro and Premium Per User. That is new, because until now this was a feature for those who pay for Fabric.

A lot has been written about it, and not everything you read comes from Microsoft itself. Below is what exists, what is confirmed, and what is still open. As of 5 October 2026.

An app is not a report

A Fabric App is a web application that runs in Fabric. Microsoft provides the hosting, the login and the database. You provide the code, in TypeScript, and you usually do not write that code yourself: an AI agent does, with the SDK and command line tool Microsoft released for it under the name Rayfin.

There are two kinds.

• A data app reads an existing Power BI model through DAX. It is a custom dashboard on top of a model that already exists. That model's row-level security still applies.
• An operational app has its own SQL database in Fabric and can write data back. Think of input screens and internal tools.

That difference matters more than it seems. A data app shows what has already been modelled. An operational app is the source itself. More on that in do you need Fabric?

What exists today

Fabric Apps have been in public preview since Microsoft Build, on 2 June 2026. What you get:

• Sign-in exclusively through Entra ID, your organisation's Microsoft account.
• Ready-made visuals such as bar, line and waterfall charts, KPI cards and a table, with cross-filtering and one central theme.
• Instructions in the project itself, so an AI agent knows how the app is put together.

What is not there yet: no separate environments for development, test and production, no private links, and you cannot connect an existing database as the app database. You also cannot show an app on your own website without the viewer signing in with Microsoft.

And today you need a Fabric capacity. Everything the app does consumes capacity units from that capacity.

What Microsoft itself confirms

In its own Power BI blog of 29 September, Microsoft confirms three things.

• Apps in Power BI are coming in preview for Pro, Premium Per User and Fabric capacity.
• There will be a building experience in Power BI Desktop: start from a model, have an app generated in plain language, adjust it and publish it. That is planned for "the coming months".
• Those apps can also take input and write data back. So it is not only about dashboards.

What only appears in partner reports

Some details appear in reports from partners who attended FabCon, but not in Microsoft's documentation:

• that the preview for Pro arrives "in the coming weeks";
• that it comes at no extra cost;
• that each app includes a database of up to 1 GB.

That may all be right. But until Microsoft publishes it itself, I would not base a quote on it.

The same goes for a new, small Fabric capacity without a fixed cost, billed by consumption. It has been announced, but the prices are not known yet.

In Belgium, the region matters

Fabric Apps are not available everywhere. They are in West Europe, as in a number of other European regions. Not in North Europe. And the Belgium Central region is Power BI-only: no Fabric runs there.

So the region where your organisation's data sits partly determines whether this works for you. Whether that limitation also applies to the apps coming to Pro is not clear yet.

What is still open

• Where is the line between a Fabric App and an app built in Power BI? Someone asks exactly that under Microsoft's blog. There is no answer yet.
• Which licence does the viewer need? Is Pro enough, or does it have to be PPU, as with PPU reports?
• Will there be a way to show an app on your own site without a Microsoft login? People are asking for it, but it has not been confirmed.

What you can already do today

If you have a Fabric capacity in a region where it works, you can build a data app on an existing model now. Microsoft points to the 60-day Fabric trial to try it out.

If you only have Pro, and that is most smaller companies, you are better off waiting for the preview. Power BI or Fabric explains why most smaller companies do not need a capacity today, and this does not change that yet.

But this is not only a technical story. If everyone can soon have an app made in plain language, the risk shifts. That is what soon everyone builds dashboards is about.

What you can automate

Creating a project, testing it locally and publishing it are all commands, so it fits in an automated pipeline. You can query the region and capacity of an environment through the Fabric API instead of clicking through the portal. And an administrator can check through the Admin API whether the required settings are switched on.

The claim

Apps in Power BI are coming, also for Pro. That is confirmed. When, at what price and with which limitations, is not yet. Try it as soon as you can, but do not promise a client anything based on someone else's report.