Power BI Q&A: ask a question in your own words, get a visual
Power BI Q&A lets a person type a question in plain language and receive a visual as the answer. It works on dashboards and as a visual inside a report. Microsoft has announced that the Q&A experiences go away in February 2027, so teams should plan ahead. This guide explains how the feature works today, how to tune it and how to prepare for the change.
- Questions in plain words
- Synonyms and tuning
- Retirement date announced
Last updated
What is Power BI Q&A and where does it appear?
Q&A is a search box for data. A reader types a phrase such as sales by year, and the feature builds a chart from the semantic model. One question often leads to another, so the exploration feels like a conversation.
Microsoft documents two places for it. Every dashboard has a question field, and a report creator can add a Q&A visual to a report page. Report designers can also use it to create visuals quickly while they build.
As you type, the feature suggests completions, much like a search engine. It also starts with suggested questions before you type anything. Therefore new users can begin without knowing the field names.
Three underline colors that explain a Q&A result
The visual underlines words in a question to show how well it understood each one.
Solid blue
The system matched the word to a field or a value in the model. So that part of the question maps cleanly.
Orange dots
The match has low confidence. For example, several fields may contain the word sales, and the reader should pick one.
Red double line
The feature did not recognize the word at all. Often a business term does not exist anywhere in the data.
Six question styles that Power BI Q&A understands
Microsoft lists many supported question types, and these six cover most everyday needs.
- A natural question about the highest or lowest value
- Relative date filters, such as sales in the last year
- A top list, such as the leading products by sales
- Filters on a place or a category
- A request for a chart type, such as a pie chart
- Trends over time, or a comparison of two measures
How can an author improve the answers?
Results depend heavily on names. The engine relies on table names, field names and their synonyms. So a publisher who asks about novel sales gets little when the model only knows the word product.
Desktop offers a setup menu for this, which you open from the gear icon on the visual. Microsoft notes that the menu exists only in the desktop app and currently supports import mode only. There you add synonyms, hide fields from Q&A and teach it terms it did not recognize.
Other tools help as well. You can replace the automatic starter questions with your own suggested questions. You can also set a row label on a table, so a question about customers shows each customer's name.
What does the retirement of Power BI Q&A mean for a team?
Microsoft's documentation now carries a clear notice. The Q&A experiences are going away in February 2027. Microsoft recommends Copilot as the alternative for natural language questions.
So treat the feature as one with an end date. If a report depends on a Q&A visual, list those pages now. Then decide whether each one needs a replacement or whether a well-designed page with slicers answers the same need.
Much of the tuning work still pays off, however. Clear field names, tidy tables and sensible synonyms make any model easier to query. Check Microsoft's deprecation article for the current details, since dates and recommendations can change. For help checking whether your models and capacity are ready for the replacement, see Power BI Copilot readiness.
Prepare for the change in four steps
This short plan keeps readers served while the feature winds down.
Find the usage
First list the reports and dashboards where people actually type questions. Also note which questions they ask most.
Cover the top questions
Then build standard visuals or pages that answer those frequent questions directly, so nobody depends on typing.
Clean the model names
Next rename unclear fields and hide technical ones, because every query tool benefits from plain names.
Review the alternative
Finally read Microsoft's guidance on the recommended replacement, including its license and capacity requirements.
Power BI Q&A: questions teams ask
Is Power BI Q&A going away?
Yes, according to Microsoft's own documentation. The notice on the Q&A articles says the experiences are going away in February 2027 and recommends Copilot for Power BI instead. Because plans like this can shift, read the deprecation article on Microsoft Learn before you make decisions about existing reports.
Which chart types can a Q&A visual return?
Microsoft lists line, bar, matrix, table, card, area, pie, scatter or bubble, and map. The feature picks a type by itself and places date fields on the horizontal axis. However, you can ask for another one by adding the chart type after the question.
Why does a question return the wrong field?
Usually because the word matches several fields, or none. An orange dotted underline signals a low-confidence match, and a red double underline signals no match. So add a synonym for the business term in the setup menu, or hide the competing fields from Q&A.
Can I see what users have asked?
Yes. The setup menu has a Review questions section. It lists semantic models used in the service for your tenant and shows the questions people asked, including words the engine did not recognize. Microsoft states that the data covers the last 28 days.
Can Power BI Agency help us move away from Q&A visuals?
Yes. One of our consultants lists where your reports rely on typed questions and designs replacement pages for the common ones. We work online inside your own Microsoft tenant, with weekly demos. We are a division of Sataware Technologies, independent of Microsoft, and do not resell licenses.
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