Why Power BI

Explore the top reasons organizations choose Power BI to meet their self-service and enterprise business intelligence (BI) needs.

Why Power BI

Explore the top reasons organizations choose Power BI to meet their self-service and enterprise business intelligence (BI) needs.

World map showing various Power B I data centers

Rely on one of the largest and fastest growing business intelligence clouds

Create and share interactive data visualizations across global datacenters, including national clouds to meet your compliance and regulation needs.

Trust an industry leader

Gartner recognizes Microsoft as a Leader for the thirteenth consecutive year in the Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligent Platforms.

*This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Microsoft.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

In 2006-2012, Gartner report was named as “Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms.” In 2013-2017, Gartner report was named as “Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms.” In 2018-2020*, Gartner report was named as “Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.”

2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms, James Richardson, Rita Sallam, Kurt Schlegel, Austin Kronz, Julian Sun, February 11, 2020

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Better protect Power BI data with Microsoft Information Protection and Microsoft Cloud App Security

Apply sensitivity labels familiar in Office 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook to Power BI data.

Extend protection and governance policies to Power BI data—including exported data—with Microsoft Information Protection.

Better meet privacy and regulatory requirements with oversight of sensitive data through Microsoft Cloud App Security.

Help prevent exposure of sensitive data by blocking risky user activities, in real time, with Microsoft Cloud App Security.

Put BI in everyone’s hands—economically

Because Power BI Desktop is free to use and Power BI Pro is available for a low monthly price per user, you can cost-effectively offer everyone BI and analytics capabilities to drive a data culture across your org.

Get rapid, user-driven innovation

Receive weekly and monthly updates that improve Power BI features and capabilities—based on thousands of ideas submitted annually from a community of more than half a million members worldwide.

Unify self-service and enterprise analytics

Meet both your self-service and enterprise data analytics needs on a single platform. Access powerful semantic models, an application lifecycle management (ALM) toolkit, an open connectivity framework, and fixed-layout, pixel-perfect paginated reports.

Accelerate big data prep with Azure

Simplify how you analyze and share large volumes of data. By using a no-limits Azure data lake, you’ll reduce the time it takes to get insights and increase collaboration between business analysts, data engineers, and data scientists.

Find answers fast with industry-leading AI

Take advantage of the latest advances in Microsoft AI to help non-data scientists prepare data, build machine learning models, and find insights quickly from both structured and unstructured data, including text and images.

Get unparalleled Excel integration

Anyone who’s familiar with Office 365 can easily connect Excel queries, data models, and reports to Power BI Dashboards—helping to quickly gather, analyze, publish, and share Excel business data in new ways.

Turn insights into action

Go from data to insights and insights to action with the Microsoft Power Platform—combining Power BI with Power Apps and Power Automate to easily build business applications and automate workflows.

Stream analytics in real time

Know what’s happening now, not just in the past. From factory sensors to social media sources, get access to real-time analytics so you’re always ready to make timely decisions.

Create data dashboards and visualizations in minutes