Copilot in MS Fabric: Soon available to more users in your organization

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• April 16, 2024 by Ruixin Xu 28,096 Views

We are pleased to share a set of key updates regarding the Copilot in Microsoft Fabric experiences. The information in this blog post has also been shared with Fabric tenant administrators. Below are the highlights of the changes.

• (Pre Announce) Starting May 20th, 2024, Copilot in Microsoft Fabric will be enabled on-by-default for all tenants. In order to ensure a smooth transition to enable everyone, we have also addressed several features reported by our customers and community
  • Prompts entered into copilot are no longer stored by Microsoft for abuse monitoring. This was a major hurdle for many customers, and we are pleased to confirm that we have finally addressed this. Now, no prompts or customer data is stored by Microsoft.
  • Customers with capacity region inside the EU data boundary no longer need to enable the cross-geo setting to use copilot. Your data will now always remain in the EU by default.
  • The AI and Copilot setting will be automatically delegated to capacity administrators and tenant administrators, allowing capacity admins to decide if they wish to enable copilot for their capacity.

This change is an important milestone to eventually allow Copilot to reach GA within this year. See below for more details on the upcoming changes.

Copilot will be enabled by default  

As you may know, Copilot in Microsoft Fabric requires your tenant administrator to enable the feature from the admin portal. Today, we are announcing that starting May 20th, 2024, Copilot in Microsoft Fabric will be enabled by default for all tenants. This update is part of our continuous efforts to enhance user experience and productivity within Microsoft Fabric. 

In order to enable this setting on by default, we have made two big changes to copilot, first we have updated our approach to abuse monitoring. We now no longer store user prompts or data. Secondly, we have updated our geo mapping to ensure data that is within the EU stays within the EU in your tenant. More details can be found below.

This new default activation means that AI features like Copilot will be automatically enabled for tenants who have not yet enabled the setting. Note: This setting and update does not apply to customers who do not have access to copilot. If you prefer not to use this feature in your tenant, you must proactively disable the setting before May 20^th, 2024. 

How to keep it disabled  

If you prefer to have AI features like Copilot turned off within your tenant, please follow these steps before May 20th, 2024: 

This process ensures that your tenant will not be automatically affected by the default enablement. Alternatively, you can enable the feature for a security group containing only the administrators, maintaining control over its distribution. 

Copilot no longer stores your data for Abuse monitoring

To enhance privacy and trust, we’ve updated our approach to abuse monitoring: previously, we retained data from Copilot in Fabric, containing prompt inputs and outputs, for up to 30 days to check for abuse or misuse. Following customer feedback, we’ve eliminated this 30-day retention. Now, we no longer store prompt related data, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to your privacy and security. We value your input and take your concerns seriously. Note: our product terms, documentation and in product UI still may contain suggest we store data. These text labels will be updated within the next 28 days of this post.

Updated Cross Geo mapping 

In addition to Copilot, Fabric offers many AI features that leverage built-in Azure AI capabilities. We have updates to share regarding how we map Fabric resources to Azure AI resources from a Geo perspective.  

The prebuilt Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot in Fabric may process your prompts and results (input and output when using Copilot) outside your capacity’s geographic region, depending on where the Azure OpenAI service is hosted.   

Previously, you had to turn on the cross-geo setting if your capacity region was not in US or France. We have now changed the cross-geo mapping logic for EU customers: If your capacity region is inside the EU data boundary, you don’t have to enable the cross-geo setting anymore. For any capacity residing in the EU, your data will not be stored or processed outside the EU data boundary. 

Capacity delegation  

Additionally, we are introducing a new capability to enable Copilot on Capacity level in Fabric. A new option is being introduced in the tenant admin portal, to delegate the enablement of AI and Copilot features to Capacity administrators.  This AI and Copilot setting will be automatically delegated to capacity administrators and tenant administrators won’t be able to turn off the delegation.  

We also have a cross-geo setting for customers who want to use Copilot and AI features while their capacity is in a different geographic region than the EU data boundary or the US. By default, the cross-geo setting will stay off and will not be delegated to capacity administrators automatically. Tenant administrators can choose whether to delegate this to capacity administrators or not. 

Capacity administrators will see the “Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service (preview)” settings under Capacity settings/ Fabric Capacity / <Capacity name> / Delegated tenant settings. By default, the capacity setting will inherit tenant level settings. Capacity administrators can decide whether to override the tenant administrator’s selection. This means that even if Copilot is not enabled on a tenant level, a capacity administrator can choose to enable Copilot for their capacity. With this level of control, we make it easier to control which Fabric workspaces can utilize AI features like Copilot in Microsoft Fabric. 

Next Steps 

We appreciate your attention to these important updates and are here to support you through this transition. For more details about these changes and Copilot, please follow this link Learn More.