AI and Power Platform Part-1 - AI with Power BI

 AI has become ubiquitously exploding and seems like every business application is now infused with it. This is also the case with many of the Microsoft business apps - Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. In this blog series I will explore the infusion of AI in the Microsoft Power Platform and business outcome benefits from it. To start this blog is about AI with(in) Power BI. 

There are many wonderful reasons to use Power BI -

1.    It is now the 'defacto' visualization tool for data with Microsoft

2.     Analytics using Power BI is easy to learn 

3.     It has built in AI capabilities that can be used without writing any code.

If you were not aware of the #3 above than now is the time to explore some of the AI capabilities. 

Power BI has many AI and AI related capabilities OOTB as detailed below -

1. Key Influencers - Provides impact and influence of key contributors on the result.

Key Influencers

The above report helps to answer Sales questions such as - What is the biggest influencer for an opportunity to be won? (or Lost) (discount as in this case and you may not need AI for that). The point is that we now have the power to quickly identify the key influencers on a particular business results. There is no more detailed modeling or manipulation of data needed and helps in understanding patterns and taking actions based on the key influencers.

2. Decomposition Tree - ability to quickly do a root cause and ad-hoc analysis using AI Splits.

Decomposition Tree

In this case we can drill down from Sales to a hierarchy of Sales by Category - by Product - by Region. The AI here is where to drill down using AI Splits to get to the next highest or lowest value. For example below shows that David So has the highest Opportunity values path.

AI Splits - Highest Opportunity value

This can be useful in identifying the biggest opportunity owner from an ocean of Sales data and making sure that the business results are met.
 

3. Anomaly detection - Auto detect anomalies in data and generate dynamic text summaries. Identifying anomalies in data may not be new but auto generating a paragraph that explains the anomaly can be very useful. It can also provide answers to specific questions. Lets look at the revenue line chart where there is a sharp decline in revenue. 

Anomaly detection

I can select the lowest point and right click > analyze > explain the decrease and Power BI shows me various possible reasons to identify the anomaly.

Analysis results

So now I know all the possible reasons there was a decrease in revenue in plain English. (If only it could tell me who is blank 😀 )

Additionally there are many other AI options like Q&A and Insights which provide great benefits to users.

You can add the AI insights to a report page using the Insert > AI visuals option or pick the AI visuals from the Visualizations pane.

I hope this helps in getting you started using AI in Power BI and let me know about your experience.

I will write more about AI in Power Platform in my future blogs. Thanks for reading.

@mihircrm

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