Pune: iLink Digital, an AI-led transformation services company, participated in the European Microsoft Fabric + SQL Community Conference (FabCon Europe) 2026, held in Barcelona from 28 September to 1 October. Through customer conversations and technical sessions, the team examined a key challenge for enterprises: how to build on existing data and analytics investments to make AI more reliable, context-aware and useful in everyday business decisions.
The discussions explored how Microsoft Fabric, trusted Power BI semantic models, business context and governance can work together to help organizations move beyond reporting to AI experiences that understand business context and support operational workflows. As a Diamond Sponsor, iLink Digital brought these discussions to the conference, with a focus on practical architecture, implementation and business value.
“FabCon Europe gave us a chance to hear directly from customers about what it takes to make AI dependable in the enterprise. Again and again, the answer came back to business context. AI is only as useful as the data, definitions and governance behind it, and that is where iLink and Microsoft Fabric come together. We were proud to share that work in Barcelona alongside customers like Marvell,” said Sree Balaji, Co-founder and Group CEO, iLink Digital.
From Report-Ready to AI-Ready
A recurring theme at the conference was that access to capable AI models alone is not enough. Enterprise AI also needs trusted business context, including clear definitions, governed data, relationships and knowledge captured in semantic models and planning processes. Microsoft’s announcements around Fabric IQ, ontology, Copilot, Planning and applications in Power BI reinforced the growing connection between enterprise data and AI experiences. These foundations help AI systems interpret what data means, rather than simply retrieve information from it.
Fabric IQ was central to this conversation. It is designed to give AI agents a deeper understanding of enterprise context, helping them support better-informed decisions and actions. For enterprises, the challenge is to strengthen existing data environments so AI can work with business context, appropriate controls and greater reliability.
Thought Leadership: Applying Business Context to AI
From Foundry to Forecast
In “From Foundry to Forecast,” Sowjanya Bobbadi and Subbu Muthukrishnan demonstrated how an agent can turn a business question into a forecast update in Microsoft Fabric while retaining existing governance and approvals. The session connected business context, planning processes and AI agents, illustrating how enterprise knowledge can be applied within established business workflows.
Do You Trust Your AI Systems? Moving from Power BI to Trusted AI Answers
Christopher Schmidt, VP of Solution Engineering & Innovation at iLink Digital, presented a session on the transition from Power BI to trusted AI answers. The session explored what makes a semantic model AI-ready, how a governed Fabric and OneLake foundation supports trusted AI reasoning, and how Fabric IQ helps AI systems understand business meaning rather than just schema. It also examined the changes organizations may need to make to their existing Fabric environments before deploying AI agents in business workflows.
Customer Success Story: Marvell Technology
At FabCon Europe 2026, Srikanth Thiagarajan, Head of Data Office at Marvell Technology, joined iLink Digital on stage for “From Data to Context to Decisions: Marvell’s Journey Toward an Enterprise Knowledge Layer.” The discussion explored how governed enterprise data, a shared knowledge layer and business context come together to enable people and AI agents to make informed decisions. The session highlighted the importance of connecting enterprise data with the context needed to support meaningful business decisions.
Microsoft Fabric Developments Shaping the Conversation
Announcements discussed at the conference pointed to a broader shift: bringing governed business context closer to Copilot, making it easier to build applications from trusted data, and extending Fabric capabilities across planning, data engineering, ontology and operations. Highlights included:
● Fabric IQ in Copilot Chat and Cowork: Generally available, bringing governed business context into Copilot.
● Apps in Power BI: Announced as entering preview, enabling applications to be created from trusted semantic models using natural language.
● Planner on Fabric IQ: Presented as an approach to addressing siloed planning by building on Fabric IQ.
● Agentic ontology creation: The ability to build an ontology from semantic models and OneLake data, express business rules in plain English, and carry Power BI measures across.
● Data engineering agent and Migration Assistant: Preview capabilities described as supporting platform migrations and lakehouse modernization, with Teradata added to Migration Assistant preview.
● IQ sharing: A preview capability for sharing governed data and agent instructions with partners and customers.
● Fabric observability: Preview capabilities to strengthen visibility and control across data and AI workloads; root-cause analysis in operations agents was described as generally available.
● Broader data platform updates: Announcements also covered OneLake integrations, Database Hub in Fabric, SQL Server on Azure Local general availability, and expansion of Microsoft Fabric to GCC High.
Together, these developments point to the importance of connecting AI models with trusted data, business rules and governed workflows. Organizations need to assess these elements together when deciding how to move from AI experimentation to dependable business use.
Turning Enterprise Knowledge into Practical Outcomes
Across customer and community discussions, iLink Digital engaged on Microsoft Fabric priorities, implementation challenges, data estate modernization and the application of AI in business workflows. The team also welcomed Arun Ulag to its booth for a discussion with iLink leadership on the evolving Microsoft Fabric ecosystem.
The conversations reinforced iLink Digital’s focus on connecting data foundations, business context and AI engineering around the decisions and workflows organizations want to improve. They also highlighted the importance of assessing AI readiness, strengthening semantic models and governance, and aligning Microsoft Fabric capabilities with business priorities.
“Many of the organizations we met in Barcelona want to build on their existing data and analytics investments. Their question now is how to get AI answers they can trust. We are helping them assess their readiness, strengthen their semantic and governance foundations, and apply Microsoft Fabric capabilities to the priorities that matter most to their business, working closely with Microsoft,” said Sakthi Kannan, Chief Growth Officer, iLink Digital.