Microsoft Unveils March 2026 Power Platform Enhancements

Microsoft has rolled out its March 2026 Power Platform updates, highlighting continued investment in AI, automation, and user-centric app design. The latest features aim to streamline development while enabling more intelligent, connected business applications.

Here’s what’s new:

• Agentic apps with Microsoft 365 Copilot

  Bring Copilot into model-driven apps to interact with your data using natural language. Generate documents, create presentations, visualize insights, and even schedule meetings—right from within your app.

• Modern app building improvements

  Canvas apps just got better. Microsoft rolled out quality updates across nine modern controls—enhancing consistency, reliability, and flexibility based on real maker feedback.

• AI-powered development with vibe.powerapps.com

  Build full-code Power Apps from a simple prompt. This new preview experience streamlines app creation, editing, and publishing—no need for VS Code or manual coding.

• Advanced process insights in Power Automate

  Object-Centric Process Mining (OCPM) provides a more realistic view of your processes by tracking interconnected business objects like orders, invoices, and payments—giving you deeper, end-to-end visibility.

• Smarter experiences with Power Pages

  The new Agent API enables seamless integration with Microsoft Copilot Studio, making it easier to build intelligent, conversational web experiences tailored to your users.

Check out the full list of Power Platform updates!

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What’s New in Power BI: March 2026 Feature Highlights

Power BI’s March 2026 release delivers a set of improvements aimed at streamlining report creation and expanding analytical capabilities. From enhanced AI experiences to more flexible reporting tools, the update focuses on empowering users to work more efficiently with their data. It reflects Microsoft’s continued investment in intelligent, end-to-end analytics.

Here’s what’s new across Copilot, reporting, modeling, and data connectivity:

• Copilot & AI: Copilot Pane User Experience Update

  The Copilot pane in Reports and Apps now has a refreshed, consistent look and feel. Functionality remains the same—but starter prompts now disappear once your conversation begins, keeping your workspace clean and focused.

• Reporting: AI Narrative Auto Refresh

  No more manual refresh clicks. With the new Auto refresh toggle for AI Narrative visuals, summaries automatically update based on slicer selections—making your reporting smoother and more intuitive.

• Modeling: Direct Lake in OneLake (Generally Available)

  Power BI continues its push toward open data standards by supporting Delta Lake and Parquet. This helps reduce data duplication, avoid vendor lock-in, and establish a true single source of truth. Plus, Direct Lake mode delivers faster performance directly from OneLake—no need for heavy data refreshes.

• Data Connectivity: IBM Netezza ODBC Driver (Generally Available)

  A more reliable path forward for Netezza users—Power BI is transitioning from the embedded Simba driver to the IBM Netezza ODBC driver, ensuring long-term support and stability.

• Visualisation: Sankey Chart by Powerviz

  The Powerviz Sankey Chart brings data to life with dynamic flow visuals—perfect for understanding movement across categories and uncovering insights in complex processes.

Check the full list of Power BI updates.

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Power BI’s Semantic Layer Push Signals the Future of AI Analytics

Microsoft is positioning semantic layers in Power BI as a critical foundation for enterprise AI, enabling more consistent, trustworthy, and scalable insights. By standardizing business logic and data definitions, these layers help AI systems deliver accurate answers across tools and users. The move reinforces how modern analytics platforms are evolving to support AI-driven decision-making at scale.

Here’s what’s new:

• Translytical flows

  Power BI is no longer just for reporting. Users can now take action directly within reports—update records, trigger workflows, and resolve issues in real time without switching systems.

• Modern visual defaults

  Create polished, consistent reports instantly. With Fluent 2-aligned themes, your visuals look professional right out of the box—so you can focus on insights, not formatting.

• Report Copilot for Mobile

  On the go? Ask questions via voice or text in the mobile app and get instant answers or visuals powered by Copilot.

• TMDL View in the Web (Preview)

  A code-first modeling experience is coming to the browser. View, edit, and manage semantic models with greater transparency and efficiency using TMDL.

• Direct Lake on OneLake

  Work with open formats like Delta Lake and Parquet while reducing data duplication. Direct Lake unlocks faster performance and near real-time insights.

• Direct Lake calculated columns (Preview)

  Extend your data model when upstream changes aren’t possible by adding calculated columns directly within Direct Lake tables.

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Power Automate Enhances Work Queues with Smarter Monitoring and Alerts

Microsoft has introduced new enhancements to work queues in Power Automate, aimed at improving how teams manage and monitor automated workflows. The updates include proactive alerts and a unified operator view, helping organisations gain better visibility and respond to issues faster. Together, these features are designed to strengthen control and efficiency across automation operations.

Here’s what’s new:

• Work Queue Alerts for Admin

  Get real-time visibility into queue health and performance, including items pending action, requiring resolution, and overall queue status. You can also set proactive alerts when SLA thresholds are exceeded—so issues are flagged before they escalate.

• Aggregated View for Operators

  Operators can now access a unified dashboard in the automation center, making it easier to monitor multiple queues, prioritise tasks, and respond to issues faster.

• Why it matters

  Scale more efficiently, optimise resources, maintain consistent prioritisation, and improve resilience with centralised monitoring and exception handling.

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Visual Studio Launches Monthly Newsletter to Highlight Subscriber Benefits

Microsoft has introduced a new opt-in newsletter for Visual Studio subscribers, aimed at helping developers stay informed about the full value of their subscriptions. The monthly email delivers curated updates, exclusive resources, and insights directly to users’ inboxes—without the need to actively search for them. The move addresses a common gap where many developers are unaware of included benefits and tools.

Here’s what you need to know:

• What is the Visual Studio Subscription newsletter?

  It’s a monthly email that keeps you updated on the latest features, training resources, and subscriber-only benefits.

• Why did Microsoft launch it?

  A Visual Studio subscription is more than just an IDE—it includes Azure credits, Dev/Test pricing, access to platforms like Pluralsight and Cloud Academy, event discounts, and partner offers. The newsletter helps you actually use these benefits.

• What’s inside

  Expect curated content like product updates, coding tips, on-demand training, benefit breakdowns, exclusive offers, and insights from the Visual Studio team.

• Why you should care

  It helps you unlock hidden value in your subscription—so you can level up faster, save costs, and stay ahead with tools like GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Azure, and .NET.

• Get started

  Opt in to the Visual Studio Subscription newsletter and make sure to select “Visual Studio” and “Visual Studio Subscriptions” in your preferences.

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Bring Your Brand’s Voice to AI: Custom Neural Voices Arrive in Dynamics 365 Contact Center

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center is introducing Custom Neural Voices, a new capability that allows organisations to create branded, natural-sounding AI voices for customer interactions. The feature enables businesses to move beyond generic text-to-speech by training AI voices that reflect their brand identity while powering virtual agents and automated voice experiences. The update aims to deliver more personalised and human-like conversations across AI-driven contact centre scenarios.

Here’s a quick look at what it offers:

• What is Custom Voice?

  Custom Voice, also known as Custom Neural Voice, lets organisations like yours to move beyond generic text-to-speech. Instead, you can create voice experiences that reflect your brand’s tone, personality, and values—while still benefiting from the scale and intelligence of AI-powered contact centres.

• Why does it matter?

  Voice is still one of the most trusted and emotionally rich ways to engage with customers. Whether it’s resolving an issue, providing updates, or guiding someone through a self-service process, how your system sounds can shape the entire customer experience.

• What can you expect?

  With 50 voice samples available, you can choose styles that fit your brand—whether that’s calm and supportive, confident and professional, or warm and conversational. This helps ensure voice interactions feel more natural and consistent.

• What are the benefits?

  Custom Neural Voice helps you deliver voice interactions that sound more natural and expressive while staying consistent with your brand identity. It also supports inclusivity across languages and accents while scaling easily for high-volume customer scenarios.

• Where can you use it?

  Custom Neural Voice can power experiences across virtual agents, self-service workflows, and intelligent IVR systems, helping create more natural AI-driven conversations with customers.

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Microsoft Introduces ‘modernize-dotnet’ Agent for Flexible .NET Upgrades

Microsoft has introduced a new modernize-dotnet custom agent that enables developers to modernize .NET applications across multiple environments, including Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and GitHub. The tool extends the modernization workflow beyond a single IDE, allowing teams to assess, plan, and execute upgrades directly within the tools they already use. It is part of the broader GitHub Copilot modernisation platform aimed at simplifying application upgrades and migrations for developers.

Here’s what you need to know:

• What the agent produces

  Each modernization run generates three artifacts in your repository: an assessment highlighting scope and blockers, a proposed upgrade plan, and upgrade tasks that apply the required code transformations.

• Using it in GitHub Copilot CLI

  Terminal-first developers can modernize directly from the shell. Simply install the plugin from the marketplace, select the agent, prompt it, and review the generated upgrade tasks before executing them.

• Using it in GitHub

  The agent can run directly inside your repository. The generated artifacts live alongside your code, allowing teams to review modernization plans just like any other code change.

• Using it in VS Code

  Install the GitHub Copilot modernization extension, select modernize-dotnet from the Agent picker in Copilot Chat, and prompt the agent with the upgrade you want to perform.

• Using it in Visual Studio

  For Visual Studio users, the workflow is fully integrated. Right-click your solution or project in Solution Explorer and select Modernize to begin the upgrade process.

• Supported workloads

  The modernization agent supports many common .NET project types, including ASP.NET Core, Blazor, Azure Functions, WPF, class libraries, and console apps. Migration from .NET Framework to modern .NET is also supported for several application types, with Web Forms support coming soon.

• Custom skills support

  The agent also supports custom skills, enabling teams to embed internal frameworks, migration patterns, or architectural standards directly into the modernisation workflow.

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Inside Agentic AI: Microsoft’s “The Shift” Podcast Answers Developers’ Top Questions

Microsoft has launched “The Shift,” a podcast exploring the emerging world of agentic AI. The series brings together experts to discuss the opportunities and challenges of AI agents in modern technology.

Here’s what you can expect:

• What is the podcast about?

  The Shift is an eight-episode podcast inspired by real questions raised at Microsoft Ignite. It brings together engineering, product, and strategy perspectives to unpack the future of AI agents.

• What topics will they cover?

  Episodes explore key questions such as how agents find data, collaborate with each other, manage context, and whether technologies like Postgres will power the next wave of AI architectures.

• Why is this podcast happening?

  Microsoft sees AI agents as a catalyst for innovation across the stack, but making them work at scale raises real challenges—observability, governance, security, optimisation, and quality.

• Where can you access the podcast?

  You can listen to The Shift on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and RSS.com.

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Microsoft Introduces .NET Skills to Extend AI Coding Agents

Microsoft has introduced dotnet/skills, a new GitHub repository designed to extend AI coding agents with specialized knowledge for .NET development. The repository contains lightweight “agent skills” that package task-specific context and workflows, helping coding assistants complete common development tasks more reliably. By providing tested patterns from the .NET team itself, the initiative aims to improve how AI agents support developers across real-world .NET scenarios.

Here’s what you need to know:

• What is an agent skill?

  An agent skill is a lightweight package of specialized knowledge that an AI agent can use while completing a task. It bundles intent, task-specific context, and supporting artifacts so the agent can make smarter decisions with less trial and error.

• What Microsoft is doing with dotnet/skills

  The dotnet/skills repository publishes skills directly from the team building the .NET platform. Instead of relying on generic prompts, developers can start with patterns already tested while shipping .NET.

• Does it actually help?

  Context is critical for AI—but more context doesn’t always mean better results. Each skill added to the repository is tested with a lightweight validator against a baseline to ensure it genuinely improves outcomes before being included.

• Discovering and using skills

  Skills are packaged like installable plugins, making them easier for tools such as GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio Code, and Microsoft Visual Studio to discover and use. The dotnet/skills repository acts as a marketplace where developers can browse and integrate these capabilities into their workflows.

• The guiding principles

  AI skills are evolving rapidly, so the focus is on keeping them simple, practical, and task-oriented rather than creating massive toolsets. The initiative also complements community collections like awesome-copilot to support stronger .NET development workflows.

• What’s next

  The AI ecosystem is moving fast—and so will this repository. Expect frequent updates, new skills, and collaboration with the developer community to continue improving how coding agents support .NET development.

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Visual Studio Dev Essentials Brings Free Tools and Training to Developers

Microsoft is highlighting Visual Studio Dev Essentials, a free developer membership that provides access to a wide range of tools, cloud services, downloads, and training resources. Designed to help developers build apps for any platform, the program brings together essential technologies and learning materials in one place. From development environments to cloud credits and educational content, Dev Essentials aims to make it easier for developers to start building and innovating.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Why Dev Essentials Matters

  Dev Essentials is a free developer membership that brings together the tools, cloud services, downloads, and training you need to build applications for any platform. Whether you're developing for macOS, Linux, Windows, web, mobile, backend services, or the cloud, it provides resources to help you get started and keep learning.

• Who It’s For

  Dev Essentials is ideal for developers using Visual Studio Community or Visual Studio Code, as well as students, hobbyists, and professionals using Microsoft Visual Studio Professional or Microsoft Visual Studio Enterprise.

• What You Get

  Members gain access to developer tools, learning resources, and software downloads, along with cloud services like a free Microsoft Azure account that includes $200 in credits and tools such as Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition.

• How to Get Started

  Visit the Dev Essentials page, sign in with your Microsoft account, and activate the benefits you want. From there, you can explore tools, cloud credits, downloads, and training resources — all in one place. Start with whatever sparks your curiosity, whether it’s a new language, cloud service, or developer workflow improvement.

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