Just 15 days ago, we explained that Fabric Copilot Capacity could be enabled on any capacity for those who already had a large capacity (F64 or higher) with Copilot activated.
Now, Microsoft has announced a major update that marks a significant leap forward in the democratization of artificial intelligence.
As of April 28, 2025, Fabric Copilot Capacity is available across all Fabric Capacities — starting from the most basic tier (F2).
This means that for just over €50 per month, you can now access Copilot across the entire Microsoft Fabric suite, including Power BI.
Even better, any organization with a Microsoft Fabric license — or a legacy Power BI license (P1, P2, or P3) — can now leverage Copilot without the need to purchase a higher-tier capacity.
This milestone reflects Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to making its AI capabilities accessible to all Fabric users, regardless of company size or budget.
Until recently, Copilot was only available for select capacities and required high-level licenses such as Power BI P1, P2, P3, or Fabric F64 — excluding smaller SKUs and capacities dedicated solely to embedding.
However, responding to user requests, Copilot is now finally available across all Fabric capacities, starting from the most basic tier (F2).
This update empowers organizations of all sizes to leverage AI in their analytics workflows without increasing their infrastructure costs.
As Microsoft highlights in its official announcement:
“Customers with F2 and above can now use Copilot and AI capabilities to automate workflows, generate insights, and drive impactful decisions.”
Fabric Copilot Capacity is a Microsoft offering designed to simplify the management of usage and payment for Copilot, its generative AI assistant.
With this feature, companies can consolidate Copilot usage across multiple users into a single environment, rather than having it spread across various departments or tools. This makes it easier to monitor usage and centralize costs.
When a user is connected to a Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC), all Copilot-related activities (or use of other Microsoft Fabric AI features) are billed to that central capacity — not to the individual workspace where the user is working.
Previously, using Fabric Copilot Capacity required having a large and costly Fabric capacity, specifically F64 or higher.
But as of April 28, 2025, Microsoft has removed that restriction. Now, any organization can activate Fabric Copilot Capacity without needing an F64-level capacity. In other words:
You no longer need a high-tier Fabric capacity to use Copilot. You can enable it with any Microsoft Fabric capacity — even the most basic one (F2).
Users connected to a Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) can use it in the following situations:
Note: This applies when the Fabric capacity in use is not too large (specifically, under F64 — a technical measure of capacity size).
The expanded availability of Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) does not change Microsoft Fabric’s pricing model, but it significantly lowers the barrier to entry for enterprise-grade artificial intelligence.
The following table outlines Fabric's main capabilities, their size, estimated monthly cost, estimated monthly cost adapted to working hours and the availability of Copilot and AI capabilities:
| Fabric SKU | CUs | Estimated Monthly Price (EUR) | Workday-Adjusted Monthly Price (8h/day, 5d/week) | Copilot & AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F2 | 2 | ~€244.40 | ~€58.20 | ✅ Yes |
| F4 | 4 | ~€488.80 | ~€116.30 | ✅ Yes |
| F8 | 8 | ~€977.60 | ~€232.70 | ✅ Yes |
| F16 | 16 | ~€1,955.30 | ~€465.30 | ✅ Yes |
| F32 | 32 | ~€3,910.60 | ~€930.70 | ✅ Yes |
| F64 | 64 | ~€7,821.90 | ~€1,861.30 | ✅ Yes (previous requirement) |
| F128 | 128 | ~€15,643.80 | ~€3,722.60 | ✅ Yes |
| F2048 | 2048 | ~€250,170.00 | ~€59,560.00 | ✅ Yes |
| Fabric SKU | CUs | Estimated Monthly Price (USD) | Workday-Adjusted Monthly Price (8h/day, 5d/week) | Copilot & AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F2 | 2 | ~$262.80 | ~$62.50 | ✅ Yes |
| F4 | 4 | ~$525.60 | ~$125.00 | ✅ Yes |
| F8 | 8 | ~$1,051.20 | ~$250.00 | ✅ Yes |
| F16 | 16 | ~$2,102.40 | ~$500.00 | ✅ Yes |
| F32 | 32 | ~$4,204.80 | ~$1,000.00 | ✅ Yes |
| F64 | 64 | ~$8,409.60 | ~$2,000.00 | ✅ Yes (previous requirement) |
| F128 | 128 | ~$16,819.20 | ~$4,000.00 | ✅ Yes |
| F2048 | 2048 | ~$269,000.00 | ~$64,000.00 | ✅ Yes |
*Notes: The “Estimated monthly price (USD)” column reflects the estimated monthly cost under the pay-as-you-go model in dollars, considering the continuous use of the service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, throughout the month. This is the full cost for permanent availability of capacity (CUs). In contrast, the column “Adjusted monthly price (8h/day, 5d/week)” shows the estimated monthly cost if Microsoft Fabric capacity is used only during typical working days (8h/day, 5 days/week), which is equivalent to about 173 hours of usage per month (8h × 5 days × 4.33 weeks). Given that a full month has 720 hours (24h × 30 days), this usage pattern represents approximately 23.8% of the total monthly time.
Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) does not only deliver savings on licensing costs — it also boosts time efficiency and operational performance. It enables organizations to:
All of this translates into a stronger return on investment (ROI) in terms of agility and data-driven decision-making.
Microsoft Fabric is licensed by capacity units (CUs). You pay for the capacity tier you choose (F2, F4, F64, etc.), regardless of the number of users or the features used. All paid SKUs, starting from F2 (~$262/month), include Copilot at no additional cost.
Example:
- F2 → 2 CUs → ~$262/month
- F64 → 64 CUs → ~$8,400/month
- F2048 → 2048 CUs → ~$269,000/month
The pay-as-you-go model allows you to temporarily scale capacities based on demand. You can increase your capacity for specific events — such as a hackathon or intensive campaigns — and then return to your usual level afterward.
💡 Note: You can calculate the exact price for each capacity and use case with the Microsoft Fabric SKU calculator.
Activating a Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) in Microsoft Fabric is a relatively straightforward process, but it does require meeting a few technical, licensing, and configuration prerequisites.
Below is a step-by-step explanation of what you need to get started with Copilot and generative AI capabilities in your environment.
To enable Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC), your capacity must be hosted in a region where Copilot is available.
“Allow data sent to Azure OpenAI to be processed outside of the capacity's geographic region.”
This requirement exists because Copilot relies on Azure OpenAI, which may process data outside the tenant’s region.
⚠️ Important: FCC is not available in sovereign clouds such as Azure Government or Azure China 21Vianet, due to limited GPU availability and compliance restrictions.
Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) is only available in environments with a paid Microsoft Fabric capacity.
FCC access can be managed from the Microsoft Fabric Admin Portal, under the tenant settings.
Admins have the ability to:
This allows for granular control over how AI resources are distributed across the organization.
Having an active paid capacity (F2 or higher)
Make sure your region supports Copilot
Review and adjust privacy settings in the admin portal
Assign the right user permissions
Allow up to 24 hours for changes in capacity to take effect
The AI features enabled through Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) span multiple workloads and are designed to accelerate the productivity of analysts, data scientists, data engineers, and business users — without requiring advanced programming skills.
Below, we explore the main AI capabilities included with Copilot in Microsoft Fabric.
Power BI Copilot is one of the most visible and impactful use cases of Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC). It enables a wide range of AI-driven capabilities, including:
These features democratize data analysis, empowering non-technical users to build clear, functional dashboards in just minutes.
Within notebook environments (Data Engineering, Data Science), Copilot acts as a powerful coding assistant that helps streamline development tasks:
Copilot also simplifies the design and execution of data transformation workflows in Data Factory:
Example: “Extract the day from a timestamp column and filter records from the last month.”
For SQL environments and tabular analysis, Copilot offers a natural and intuitive experience:
Example: “Show total sales by region for the last quarter.”
Copilot integrates with Kusto Query Language (KQL) to query streaming and telemetry data:
Ideal for operations, monitoring, and rapid response to live events.
An advanced capability that complements FCC:
Example: “What were the three largest expenses this year and how do they compare to last year?”
These agents leverage Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Foundry, enabling natural and powerful interaction with enterprise data.
Beyond specific workloads, Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) empowers teams to:
The philosophy behind FCC is simple: you no longer need to code to analyze and understand your data—you just need to ask.
The expansion of Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) marks a major advancement for the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem. However, before moving toward widespread adoption, it’s essential to understand its technical, regulatory, and operational limitations.
Recommendation: Before enabling FCC, review your organization's privacy, data protection and compliance policy.
All Copilot features in Microsoft Fabric are currently in public preview. This means:
Important: While Copilot provides powerful assistance, it's essential to manually review and validate any generated code, summaries, or results before using them in production environments.
Recommendation: In multilingual environments, it is advisable to prioritize English usage to ensure greater accuracy and consistency in results.
Recommendation: Use Copilot Capacity to route AI workloads to a dedicated instance, minimizing interference with essential data processes.
Tip: Make sure your capacity is properly sized to handle the anticipated demand for AI across your organization.
Important: If your organization uses Power BI Embedded to serve external clients, you will need to purchase an additional F capacity if your internal teams wish to leverage Copilot functionalities.
abric administrators have several governance tools to manage Copilot usage:
Microsoft enforces its Responsible AI policy, which ensures:
Recommendation: Establish an internal policy outlining who can use FCC, how it should be used, and under what conditions — especially if your organization operates in a regulated industry.
The arrival of Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) across all paid Microsoft Fabric capacities, starting from the F2 tier, marks a turning point in enterprise access to artificial intelligence.
This update breaks down barriers, democratizes the use of AI-driven analytics, and enables organizations of all sizes to benefit from automation, assisted analysis, and natural language insights — all without additional costs or technical complexity.
In today’s environment, where agility, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making are critical, Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) stands out as an essential tool to transform analytics processes. With its capacity-based model, seamless integration across all Fabric workloads, and easy activation, FCC offers an accessible, scalable solution ready to elevate real-time business intelligence.
Adopting Fabric Copilot Capacity (FCC) isn’t just a technical upgrade — it’s a competitive advantage. If you’re not yet tapping into its full potential, now is the time.
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