Power BI and Fabric news, 11 September 2026: test your connectors before the driver switch
Easy Insight Team ·
The item that matters this fortnight is a driver change. Power BI and Microsoft Fabric are moving Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Databricks and five other connectors from embedded ODBC drivers to ADBC, and Microsoft plans to start removing ODBC from the service in late Q3 to early Q4 2026. If you use those connectors, test one report now.
With September's feature summaries not yet out, this covers 26 August to 11 September.
Does the ODBC-to-ADBC switch affect your reports?
It does if Power BI or Fabric reaches Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Databricks, Azure Databricks, Impala, Spark or Dremio through the built-in connector. Hive has no replacement driver. Sources such as Excel, SharePoint and SQL Server are not in scope (Microsoft Learn, updated 3 September 2026).
For a small business the likeliest exposure is marketing data: if Google Analytics exports to BigQuery and Power BI reads it from there, this is you.
Microsoft's planned timeline, all "subject to rollout readiness":
| When (planned) | What happens |
|---|---|
| August 2026 onwards | Microsoft starts switching the ADBC setting on by default, in phases |
| Late Q3 to early Q4 2026 | ODBC drivers start being removed from the service |
| Spring 2027 | ODBC drivers stop shipping with Power BI Desktop and the gateway |
Microsoft's announcement post gives slightly different timings, and the two pages disagree on whether untouched existing connections switch when the default flips. Do not wait to find out.
The test is small: add Implementation="2.0" to the source step of one affected report, refresh, and compare row counts, column types and key totals with the current version. One trap: do not pin Implementation="1.0" to stay on ODBC. Microsoft's audit tool marks that "will fail" at cutover unless the refresh runs through a gateway, and a gateway only defers the change.
What changes for Fabric Git integration on 1 December?
From 1 December 2026, users without read-write permission on workspace items can't use Git integration, deploy a workspace or assign it to a stage in a deployment pipeline. Microsoft warns this can cost access to some items because of sensitivity labels and protection policies (Fabric August 2026 feature summary).
If you use either feature, check before December that whoever runs deployments has read-write access to every item, labelled ones included.
Is your data gateway up to date?
The August 2026 on-premises data gateway (version 3000.330, published 28 August) brings third-party dependency security updates and matches the August Power BI Desktop release. Gateways on office servers are easy to forget; check the version.
Also new, in preview: connection recency shows when each Fabric connection was last used. The useful SME check is ownership: give any connection with a single named owner a second one, ideally a group, before that person leaves.
How many UK small businesses really use AI?
A Simply Business survey published on 8 September puts it at 47%, up from 22% in 2025 (1,842 owners surveyed 30 July to 7 August 2026). The ONS put it at 28% for businesses with fewer than 10 employees in June 2026. Different surveys asking different questions: the gap is methodology, not contradiction.
Both agree on depth. Only 19% of Simply Business respondents felt "very confident" with AI day to day, and the ONS average adopter uses about 1.6 AI technologies. The advantage still lies in changing one process properly, as our 90-day plan for implementing AI sets out.
If that means trialling Copilot: as of September 2026, Microsoft's UK site lists the Copilot Business add-on for existing Microsoft 365 Business customers from £13.80 per user per month, paid yearly, excluding VAT. That is a first-year promotion (down from £16.10) running until 31 December 2026, so budget the renewal at full rate.
What we would do this week
Find the affected connectors in your semantic models and dataflows and test one with Implementation="2.0"; update any gateway to 3000.330; and, if you use deployment pipelines, diary 1 December. Next up: FabCon Europe in Barcelona (28 September to 1 October) and the September feature summaries; until then our August Power BI update stays current.
If you are weighing where Fabric fits, our Fabric pricing guide has the UK numbers, and the Power BI consultancy and data engineering pages explain how our data practice works.
Frequently asked questions
Which Power BI connectors are affected by the ODBC to ADBC change?
Snowflake, Google BigQuery (including the Microsoft Entra ID version), Databricks, Azure Databricks, Impala, Spark and Dremio move to new drivers, and Hive has no replacement driver. The change covers only the drivers that ship with Power BI; a separately installed ODBC driver used through the ODBC connector is unaffected.
When will ODBC stop working in the Power BI service?
Microsoft plans to begin removing ODBC drivers from the service in late Q3 to early Q4 2026, and to stop shipping them with Power BI Desktop and the gateway in spring 2027. Both dates are planned and subject to rollout readiness, and Microsoft says it will give advance notice before enforcement.
Can we keep using ODBC?
Only for a while. Refreshes routed through an on-premises data gateway keep using the gateway's bundled ODBC driver, but Microsoft calls that a deferral rather than an opt-out, because future gateway releases will no longer include the ODBC drivers.
Easy Insight is a UK consultancy for AI, web, apps and data — senior specialists only, no juniors.
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