FabCon and SQLCon Barcelona has officially come to a close, and what a week it was!
Nearly 5,000 data professionals came together for more than 130 sessions, 10 full-day tutorials, community meetups, roundtables, executive sessions, media and analyst briefings, and countless conversations in the hallways and across the Expo Hall. It was our biggest European FabCon event and the first SQLCon on the continent, but what made the week meaningful was not simply its scale. It was the openness, curiosity, and generosity of this community.
People shared what they are building, what is working, and what they are still trying to solve. They challenged ideas, learned from one another, and brought real customer and business needs into every conversation. That willingness to learn together is what continues to make this community so special.
The week also reinforced an idea that is becoming more important as AI advances: every organization knows something its competitors do not. Its data, expertise, processes, and business context are unique. The opportunity is to turn that loosely connected enterprise knowledge into coherent, meaningful, operational intelligence that people and AI can securely put to work.
That idea was at the heart of what we shared across Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databases. But rather than repeat every announcement here, I want to reflect on the moments and conversations that stayed with me.
Put trusted data and business context to work with AI
Arun Ulag, Executive Vice President of Azure Data, opened the event with a simple idea: every organization has knowledge that is uniquely its own. Creating an advantage from that knowledge requires trusted access to business context wherever people and AI work.
It was a powerful way to frame the opportunity ahead because it connected the technology directly to a challenge we hear from customers. Organizations do not need AI that simply knows more. They need AI that understands their business, works from information they trust, and operates within the security and governance boundaries they already rely on.
Three announcements helped bring that idea to life.
Fabric IQ in Microsoft Copilot is now generally available. It brings insights from trusted Power BI semantic models and reports into the flow of work, helping people ask business questions and receive answers grounded in the same definitions and metrics their organizations already use.
Observability in Fabric helps teams move from reactive troubleshooting toward proactive operations. It brings together monitoring across jobs, capacities, workspaces, and workloads, while operations agents help teams investigate issues, understand likely causes, and respond with greater speed and context.
On the SQL side, SQL Server on Azure Local is now generally available, giving organizations greater flexibility to run mission-critical workloads closer to their applications and operations while maintaining control over where their data resides. It reflects an important theme from SQLCon: helping customers modernize on their terms across cloud, local, and disconnected environments.
We also shared advances across IQ Sharing in Fabric, app creation in Power BI, agentic data engineering, and Database Hub in Fabric. Together, these innovations help organizations connect governed data and trusted business context to the applications, agents, and decisions that move their businesses forward. More broadly, they reflect a shift from connecting AI to data to connecting AI to trusted business context.
For the complete announcement story, watch the keynote, read Arun Ulag’s blog, FabCon and SQLCon 2026 in Barcelona: Building the data foundation for Microsoft Copilot and agents, and Jessica Hawk’s Official Microsoft Blog post, New Microsoft data innovations unlock what only your business knows.
The conversations behind the announcements
Some of the most important moments of the week happened away from the main stage.
I had the opportunity to hear and learn what customers, partners, executives, and community members were trying to accomplish. The questions were specific:
- How can I make my first step in data transformation manageable?
- How can I adapt my complex use case to really benefit from this innovation?
- How do we introduce and scale AI while keeping our data tightly governed?
Those conversations matter. They help us understand not only what customers want to build, but also what we can do to help them learn faster, enable their organizations, and drive adoption.
FabCon and SQLCon are also becoming an important gathering place for data leaders and industry analysts. This year, we had the opportunity to engage with our largest analyst and executive audience yet. Through executive sessions, briefings, and candid conversations, we discussed what organizations need to turn trusted data into business value and how Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft Databases can help provide the foundation for that journey.
Across analyst meetings, customer discussions, and conversations with the broader community, a consistent theme emerged: to move from experimentation to full-scale implementation, organizations are looking for a trusted foundation that brings together data, AI, and business context. While every organization is at a different stage of its journey, the need to connect these elements in a secure, grounded, and unified way came up again and again.
A community that loves to learn
What began as a product vision has become a community movement that continues to grow.
FabCon and SQLCon exist because of the passion of this vibrant community and a desire to connect, experiment, challenge ideas, and learn directly from one another. That belief shaped the community from the beginning, and it was visible everywhere in Barcelona.
The Community Lounge once again brought together MVPs, Super Users, user group leaders, and practitioners for meetups, community theater sessions, certification guidance, and conversations that continued well beyond the scheduled agenda.
The DataViz World Championship brought finalists together to build visualizations live onstage, while Power Hour delivered the demonstrations, friendly competition, and surprises that have made it a FabCon and SQLCon tradition. Congratulations to all the finalists and the new 2026 Power BI DataViz World Champion, Marius Helle.
Keep learning with FabCon TV
If you did not join us in Barcelona, or you want to revisit something you saw, FabCon TV is the place to start.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be dropping recordings that happened right from the show floor all week with expert-led segments, community interviews, and product conversations. All the episodes are being released on the Fabric YouTube channel, so the ideas and practical learning from Barcelona can reach well beyond the people who attended in person.
Celebrating the FabCon and SQLCon community
I want to recognize the teams behind everything we experienced this week.
The capabilities demonstrated in Barcelona represent months of thoughtful work across engineering, product, marketing, communications, operations, community, sponsors, and many other teams. I am proud to work alongside them.
Thank you as well to the hundreds of partners, speakers, MVPs, community leaders, customers, and everyone who joined us in Barcelona. You brought thoughtful questions, constructive scrutiny, generosity, and energy.
The event may have ended, but the ideas and relationships that began here will continue. That is the real value of bringing this community together.
Join FabCon and SQLCon 2027 in Atlanta
Mark your calendars. The next FabCon and SQLCon comes to Atlanta, Georgia, USA from March 8-12, 2027, at the Georgia World Congress Center. Atlanta is my hometown, which makes welcoming this community there especially meaningful to me.
Continue the journey at Microsoft Ignite
Before Atlanta, join us at Microsoft Ignite in San Francisco, USA from November 17-20. It is another opportunity to learn directly from experts, build practical skills, and explore what’s next across our Microsoft portfolio.
Explore more FabCon and SQLCon Europe 2026 resources
- Watch the FabCon + SQLCon Europe Keynote.
- Register for Microsoft Ignite.
- Register for FabCon and SQLCon.
- Sign up for the free Fabric trial.
- Join our Fabric community.
- Check out our Fabric and Databases webpages.
- Read our in-depth, technical blogs.
- Catch up on FabCon TV episodes.
- Plan your move with the Azure to Fabric migration site.
