Setup Power BI and AI agents for modern data modelling

This event is for attendees of the in-person course on Modern Data Modelling with Power BI on 27th April 2026 but anyone is welcome - many people have trouble setting up Power BI and configuring it to use AI agents.

We will set up Power BI Dektop (or alternatively use Power BI online) so that we can build a semantic model. We will also set up some other software tools (VSCode, Power BI MCP Server, Claude Desktop app) so that we can use AI tools such as Claude to directly improve the model based (agentic AI) based on our instructions in natural language.

This will be a hands-on guided tutorial through all the steps below. We will:

• Download and install PowerBI Desktop (PBID).
• Download the example Power BI file to use in this tutorial and open it in PBID.
• If we can't install PBID, check if we have a Power BI account. If so we can at least build the semantic model.
• Install VSCode.
• Within VSCode, install the Power BI Modeling MCP Server extension.
• Sign up for a free GitHub account (or use the one that you already have) so that we can use the GitHub Copilot AI assistant to control the Power BI MCP server.
• Connect to the open Power BI instance using GitHub Chat in VSCode and test that we can control the MCP server.
• Install the Claude Desktop app.
• Configure the Claude Desktop app so it can use the MCP Server.
• Test using the Claude Desktop app to control the MCP Server.