In this video, Pragmatic Works trainer Greg Trzeciak explores one of the fastest‑evolving AI tools within the Microsoft ecosystem: Copilot’s Chat With Your Data. As organizations adopt AI-driven workflows, many data professionals are asking an important question — is Copilot replacing the data analyst? Greg walks viewers through the current state of Copilot, its rapid evolution, and what its capabilities mean for the future of analytics.
Greg begins by reflecting on how Copilot originated as a general-purpose AI assistant similar to ChatGPT. At first, users asked fun or simple prompts such as recipe suggestions or workout plans. Over time, Copilot became deeply integrated across Microsoft 365 tools like Outlook, Excel, Teams, PowerPoint, and Office applications, assisting with emails, summaries, formulas, design ideas, and more.
As organizations adopted Copilot licenses, employees learned to use more advanced prompting — generating summaries, creating images, writing documents, and layering in Graph data. Greg explains that as the AI expanded, its speed and capabilities pushed organizations to embrace Copilot more seriously as part of daily work.
The major shift came with Copilot’s integration into Power BI. Greg explains that Copilot was originally a helpful companion inside Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service, allowing users to ask questions of a report and receive insights. But now, Chat With Your Data operates at full scale:
Greg highlights that this isn’t just an enhancement — it’s a transformative experience that reshapes how organizations consume insights.
To demonstrate the process, Greg loads a semantic model used in a Dashboard in a Day class: a dataset tracking U.S. bank failures. He selects the dataset through the Copilot pane and asks a natural-language question:
“What are the top five states by bank failures?”
Copilot responds immediately with:
Greg notes something important: Copilot could have generated a new table or DAX result, but instead it recognized that a relevant visual already existed and reused it. This demonstrates that Copilot is designed to strengthen—not replace—the work data analysts already do.
Greg confirms that custom visuals are still supported. Every visual a data analyst creates — whether default or custom — remains valuable. Copilot can:
Users can expand visuals, convert them to other formats (such as tables), or dive deeper using the “Explore” feature. Greg stresses that although this feature is often overlooked, it becomes significantly more powerful when combined with Copilot.
Greg addresses the most common fear directly: No — Copilot is not replacing the data analyst. Instead, it raises the bar for the skill sets analysts should develop.
He encourages analysts to focus on areas such as:
Copilot is only as effective as the data model behind it. A poorly modeled dataset will lead to unclear answers, confusion, or inaccurate results. Analysts play a critical role in shaping the model so that Copilot becomes a well‑informed AI collaborator rather than a “rookie analyst” making guesses.
Greg emphasizes that organizations across the country — and internationally — are moving into Fabric and adopting Copilot-driven workflows. The demand for AI-ready data has never been higher. Pragmatic Works now offers services to help organizations:
Greg closes by reminding viewers that AI isn’t going anywhere. Chat With Your Data is here today, and data teams should embrace it to stay ahead.
Stay pragmatic — and get ready for 2026.
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