{"id":3087,"date":"2026-10-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/microsoft-fabric\/blog\/?p=3087"},"modified":"2026-10-08T17:19:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T00:19:06","slug":"highlights-from-fabcon-and-sqlcon-europe-2026-unlocking-what-only-your-business-knows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/microsoft-fabric\/blog\/2026\/10\/08\/highlights-from-fabcon-and-sqlcon-europe-2026-unlocking-what-only-your-business-knows\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights from FabCon and SQLCon Europe 2026: Unlocking what only your business knows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FabCon and SQLCon Barcelona has officially come to a close, and what a week it was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n 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. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That idea was at the heart of what we shared across Microsoft Fabric<\/a> and Azure Databases<\/a>. But rather than repeat every announcement here, I want to reflect on the moments and conversations that stayed with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dive into Microsoft Fabric<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Explore Microsoft SQL Server<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Put trusted data and business context to work with AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Arun Ulag, Executive Vice President of Azure Data<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n 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.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n Three announcements helped bring that idea to life. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fabric IQ in Microsoft Copilot is now generally available<\/a>. 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.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Observability in Fabric<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the SQL side, SQL Server on Azure Local is now generally available<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also shared advances across IQ Sharing in Fabric<\/a>, app creation in Power BI<\/a>, agentic data engineering,<\/a> and Database Hub in Fabric<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the complete announcement story, watch the keynote<\/a>, read Arun Ulag’s blog, FabCon and SQLCon 2026 in Barcelona: Building the data foundation for Microsoft Copilot and agents<\/em>,<\/a> and Jessica Hawk’s Official Microsoft Blog post, New Microsoft data innovations unlock what only your business knows<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The conversations behind the announcements<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\n Some of the most important moments of the week happened away from the main stage.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the opportunity to hear and learn what customers, partners, executives, and community members were trying to accomplish. The questions were specific:<\/p>\n\n\n\n