You've probably seen the headlines. Another month, another "revolutionary" Power BI update. Honestly, it’s easy to get cynical when Microsoft drops these feature summaries every thirty days like clockwork. But the August 2025 release is actually a weirdly pivotal one. It isn't just about adding more shiny buttons; it’s about fixing the "documentation debt" that most of us have been drowning in for years.
Basically, if you’ve ever opened a semantic model created by a coworker who left the company three years ago and felt like you were trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphics, this update is for you.
The Copilot documentation hack
The big news—and I mean the "save you three hours on a Friday" kind of news—is that Copilot to write measure descriptions is now Generally Available (GA). We've all been there. You write a complex DAX measure with three nested CALCULATE functions and a KEEPFILTERS thrown in for spice. You promise yourself you'll document it later.
Spoiler: You never do.
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Now, there’s literally a button for it. Copilot looks at the DAX logic, understands the context of the tables, and spits out a human-readable description. It’s not just "this adds Column A and B." It actually explains the business logic. Is it perfect? No. You still need to proofread it so it doesn't say something hallucinated. But for 90% of your measures, it’s a massive win for governance.
Why Org Apps for Pro users is a sleeper hit
For the longest time, if you wanted the "fancy" multiple-app-per-workspace experience, Microsoft basically told you to open your wallet for Premium. That changed this month. Support for organizational apps in Pro workspaces is now in preview.
This is huge for smaller teams.
Imagine you have one workspace for "Sales." Previously, you’d have to jam every report for the VPs, the regional managers, and the floor staff into one app. Or you had to create three separate workspaces, which is a nightmare to manage. Now? You can create one app for leadership and a totally different one for the managers, all pulling from the same Pro workspace. It’s a cleaner way to distribute content without the Premium price tag.
The technical bits: TMDL and Direct Lake
If you're more of a "under the hood" person, the TMDL (Tabular Model Definition Language) view enhancements are worth a look. TMDL is basically the future of how we'll manage Power BI files in a "code-like" way.
This month, they added the ability to script object sections. Instead of manually clicking every single measure you want to script, you can just drag an entire section—like all your "Sales" measures—directly from the Model Explorer into the TMDL code editor. It sounds like a small thing until you’re dealing with a model that has 200 measures.
Speaking of large models, the Mirrored Azure Databricks catalog for Direct Lake is a game changer for the data engineers in the room. You can now bring Direct Lake tables into a semantic model in Power BI Desktop by connecting to a mirrored Databricks catalog via OneLake.
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Why should you care?
- No more scheduled refreshes for these tables.
- Lightning-fast performance.
- Lower cost because you aren't constantly moving data around.
What's actually happening with the standalone Copilot?
Microsoft is pushing the "Standalone Copilot" hard. This isn't the one that sits inside your report; it’s the full-screen experience. The August update added Filtered report summaries.
In the past, if you asked the standalone Copilot for a summary, it would give you a generic overview of the whole dataset. Now, it respects the filters you've applied. If you’ve filtered your report to "Pacific Northwest" and "Q3," the Copilot summary will actually talk about the Pacific Northwest in Q3. It sounds obvious, but it took a while to get here.
Power Query isn't getting ignored
We’ve all had that moment where a Power Query refresh fails and the whole thing just... stops. The August update introduced improved error handling in Power Query on the web. Now, if a query fails to apply, you don't have to close the whole thing and start over. You can relaunch the session, fix the step that broke, and retry right there. It’s a massive "quality of life" improvement that saves your sanity during those long ETL sessions.
The Reality Check: What's still missing?
Look, as much as these features are great, the community is still vocal about some gaps. If you go on Reddit or the Fabric community forums, people are still begging for better Matrix visual customization. We got a new "Date Picker" from Powerviz in the "Visualizations" section this month, but it’s a third-party visual.
While Copilot is getting smarter, some users are reporting that semantic model refresh templates in Fabric Data Pipelines (also a new preview this month) can still be a bit finicky with complex dependencies. It’s a "low-code" solution, but you still need a high-code brain to troubleshoot it when things go sideways.
Actionable steps for your Monday morning
Don't just read the list and forget it. If you want to actually use these Power BI new features August 2025 effectively, do this:
- Audit your documentation: Open your most popular model, hit the Copilot button on your top 5 measures, and see if the descriptions make sense.
- Split your apps: If you're on a Pro license, look at that one giant workspace you have and see if you can split it into two targeted "Org Apps" to make your users' lives easier.
- Test Direct Lake: If you're using Databricks, try mirroring a small catalog to see if the Direct Lake performance boost is worth the switch from Import mode.
- Check your PostgreSQL connections: There is new Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) authentication support. If you've been using old-school usernames and passwords for your Postgres DBs, it's time to switch to a more secure token-based login.
The August update proves that Power BI is leaning into being an "AI-First" platform, but the real value is in the boring stuff—better documentation, easier distribution, and more stable data connections.