Power BI Jan 2026: Map Markers, Tooltips

Key insights

• Power BI January 2026 update — Short video summary of this month’s feature highlights from Solutions Abroad.
  Focus areas include reporting, visuals, AI (Copilot), and modeling improvements that make report-building faster and more reliable.
• Custom Map Markers and Azure Maps — Reports can now use custom icons on maps to show locations more clearly.
  This improves geospatial storytelling for sales, logistics, and operational dashboards.
• Modern Tooltips — Tooltips are now generally available with interactive actions like drill-down, drill-up, and drill-through.
  They match report themes automatically and let users explore details without leaving the visual.
• Reset to Default and Color Picker updates — The format pane adds granular reset options and an improved color picker.
  These changes speed up styling and let authors revert specific settings without redoing the whole report.
• Copilot enhancements — Copilot gained a standalone entry on the home page, renamed model permissions as "Approved for Copilot," and supports verified answers with more visuals.
  Mobile chat attachments and better data-source handling make AI-assisted insights more practical for everyday users.
• Semantic model editing, PBIR, and Report Server additions — You can now edit incremental refresh models in the service and PBIR becomes the default report format.
  New visuals and server-side features expand customization and simplify collaboration for enterprise deployments.

Overview: Video Summary and Context

The YouTube video by Fernan Espejo (Solutions Abroad) presents the January 2026 Power BI feature summary, and it walks viewers through a range of reporting, modeling, and visualization updates. In the short walkthrough, Espejo highlights practical demos and timestamps for items such as SSRS, field parameters, and new visual options, helping users see changes in action. Consequently, the video serves both as a quick update and a how-to guide for Power BI users evaluating whether to adopt new features.

Key Features Highlighted

First, the presenter focuses on mapping enhancements, notably custom markers in Azure Maps, which let report authors use custom icons to represent locations and improve storytelling on maps. Moreover, Espejo showcases the general availability of modern visual tooltips, enabling drill-down, drill-through, and richer interactions directly from tooltips without leaving visuals. In addition, the improved format pane is covered, with a refined Colour Picker and a granular reset to default option that simplifies restoring style choices.

Practical Benefits for Report Creators

These updates reduce friction for authors who balance visual polish with fast iteration. For example, the reset to default controls save time when exploring color schemes, and the theme-matching behavior of modern visual tooltips keeps styling consistent across reports. Furthermore, enhancements such as field parameter persistence and automatic column width adjustments in tables speed up common tasks, and thus increase productivity for analysts working with recurring report designs.

Tradeoffs and Technical Challenges

However, tradeoffs exist between convenience and control, and Espejo points this out clearly. While Copilot improvements and verified answers speed up query-style analysis, they can reduce transparency if users rely too heavily on AI suggestions without validating logic. Similarly, web-based semantic model editing for incremental refresh eases collaboration, but it still limits some Power Query edits, meaning teams must decide whether to manage complex transformations in service or keep them in desktop workflows.

Impact on Teams and Governance

Enterprise teams will see tangible value from these changes, yet they must weigh governance implications. For instance, giving more users access to editing semantic models can accelerate fixes, but organizations need stronger versioning and review processes to prevent accidental model drift. In the same way, enabling richer tooltips and custom map markers encourages richer storytelling, but report authors should follow naming and design standards so visual changes remain consistent across large report libraries.

Best Practices and Adoption Tips

Espejo recommends hands-on testing and incremental adoption, and this approach reduces risk while maximizing benefit. Start by enabling new features on a few pilot reports, and then gather feedback from the users who interact with those reports daily. Moreover, maintain a short internal checklist that covers verification of Copilot responses, visual accessibility checks for custom markers, and rollback steps in case a change negatively affects report performance.

Developer and Server-Side Updates

The video also touches on updates that affect developers and on-premises teams, including the move to PBIR as an enhanced report format and the addition of visuals to Power BI Report Server. Consequently, embedding and version control workflows may simplify, while Report Server customers get new visual options to match cloud capabilities. Nonetheless, developers should test embedding scenarios and confirm that server upgrades align with organizational release plans.

Conclusion: Balancing Speed and Control

In summary, Espejo’s update-driven walkthrough frames January 2026 as an incremental but meaningful step for Power BI, focusing on usability and richer visuals. While these features speed everyday tasks and improve storytelling, teams must balance rapid adoption with governance and validation to avoid introducing errors. Therefore, the recommended path is measured adoption, clear standards, and regular testing so organizations can enjoy the benefits without sacrificing control.

How to Learn More

For practitioners who want to reproduce the demos, the video includes timestamps and downloadable demo files highlighted during the session, which help with hands-on evaluation. Finally, Espejo’s practical cadence—covering each feature briefly and showing a quick demo—makes the update accessible to both new users and seasoned authors who need to weigh tradeoffs and plan adoption across teams.

Keywords

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