Power BI Desktop Bridge – Ep.552

Power BI Desktop Bridge is a command line tool nobody would use from a command line. It exists because agents exist — it lets one reload Desktop after editing PBIP files, check whether unsaved changes are pending, and capture a screenshot to confirm the visual it just built actually looks right. This episode is about which harness to pair it with and who it’s really for.

News & Announcements

• Power BI Desktop Bridge preview — The announcement post. Still in preview, so expect rough edges.

• Desktop Bridge overview — The documentation: a local server that lets external applications, scripts, and AI agents interact with Power BI Desktop.

• Chicago Fabric user group — August 20 — RSVP required.

Main Discussion

Topic: What Desktop Bridge does, which harness to use it with, and who it’s for

• It solves the PBIP reload problem. Edit PBIP files directly and Desktop has no idea anything changed. Both hosts have lost work to this — making changes, saving over them, and redoing report definition files. The Bridge triggers the reload.

• Two lenses on one project. The Modeling MCP server handles the semantic model; Desktop Bridge handles the report side. Mike now builds models exclusively this way and calls it his preferred method going forward.

• The screenshot is the standout. The agent can capture the report, look at what it produced, verify the visual rendered with real data, and loop again if it didn’t. Nothing else in the PBIP workflow gives a harness any concept of what the report looks like.

• Screenshots are expensive. Every image sent to an agent burns tokens. Mike uses it sparingly and prefers describing what he wants in text when he can — a double-edged sword worth being deliberate about.

• Don’t use it without skills. Tommy’s opening recommendation and the one both hosts repeat. Start with Microsoft’s skills for Fabric — report planning, report authoring. It works without them; it works much better with them.

• The long tail is where skills pay off. The first pass is the big click-heavy win. Then comes a long tail of tweaks — this button, that color, add a drop shadow — that carries your style. After each round, have the agent reflect on what it just did and fold it into a skill.

• This was built for agents, not developers. Neither host can imagine running it manually. Taking screenshots and refreshing pages from a terminal isn’t compelling on its own.

• The intended audience is everyday report builders. Mike’s answer, with a caveat: it’s preview, you’ll get mixed results, and you’re expected to know what a skill is. The missing piece is distribution — there’s still no lightweight way to point a pile of skills at a project folder.

If someone on your team is using it rogue

Tommy’s closing question. Mike’s answer splits: if your organization hasn’t sanctioned it, the real concern is where the data goes — your reports and code potentially reaching training data — and that’s a shut-it-down conversation. But if you’ve already given people GitHub Copilot or Claude Code, assume they will manipulate whatever they can reach. The better response is asking what they’re doing and folding it into the wider process.

The gap that’s left

Mike is working with a client on paginated reports right now, and it’s the ask he’d send back to Microsoft: paginated report building badly needs its own bridge. Telling an agent to work on Report Builder would be more useful to him than most of what exists today.

Looking Forward

If you try Desktop Bridge, install Microsoft’s report authoring skills first — the difference between with and without is the whole experience.

Episode Transcript

0:30 Hello everyone and welcome back to the Explicit Measures podcast with Tommy and Mike. Tommy, good morning. How are you doing? doing? Man, good morning, Mike. We’ve got a great topic today. We’re going to jump right into the main topic here and not really mince any words here on other items. We This is going to be a little bit of a shorter episode cuz Tommy and I had to record some items before we get going. So, just FYI, this is a recorded episode. episode. Today’s topic we’ll be talking around the Power BI Desktop Bridge. Tommy, what the heck is a desktop bridge? What is

1:01 the heck is a desktop bridge? What is this new term that we’re coming out with? Why should we care about this? Yeah, what it’s it’s an interesting name. I’ll have to admit the first time you hear it, sounds intriguing. But Mike, Power BI Desktop Bridge Bridge is another approach to making AI agents work for you in Power BI. I I think we are so past the stage, just jumping right in, where just chatting on Chat GPT about what you’re doing in Power BI. Just It doesn’t suffice. It’s like That

1:31 Just It doesn’t suffice. It’s like That is not something I really do at all anymore. And Power BI Desktop Bridge really allows a local server for any external applications, scripts, and your AI agents to interact with Power BI Desktop. Desktop. So, it’s a command line tool. And that’s how you’d use it. However, it’s a really neat feature here. But real quick, just before we do, just wanted to announce we do have our August meetup coming up. this is going to be on August 20

2:02 on August 20 20th and it’s going to be talking about the Fabric Task Flow Studio. So that link’s going to be in there as well. Just wanted to mention that. I know that is coming up. So hopefully you can come. Yep. So real quick just wanted to say that but really yeah, we’re going to be probably integrating in the next few user groups the Power BI bridge because it is so neat but join us for a Fabric Task Flow Studios on August 20th. But Mike, yeah, Power BI Desktop bridge here it really opens up a lot of

2:32 it really opens up a lot of opportunities here because let’s let’s break down the difference between MCP and the Power BI Desktop bridge because we’ve already had the MCP available for us for a while. Before we I I want to get there. That’s the next the next Okay, sure. specific topic to to talk to. Before we go into comparing yet another term that people barely know, MCPs. Right? So So let’s have We talked about llamas yet, so Yes, a llama. We haven’t done llamas yet, so talk about that one next. So I want to There’s two articles that are

3:02 I want to There’s two articles that are here. They’ll be in the description of the video. There’s one talking about the Power BI Desktop bridge. It’s in preview currently. Sarah Rodriguez is the one the PM in over this one. This is the one who wrote the article. Awesome, by the way. It gives you just a quick read through look what it why What is this here for? Like what what is going on with this? So how we Tommy we use the XML endpoint to talk to the semantic model side. side. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is like the equivalent of talking

3:34 This is like the equivalent of talking to the report side with another access point. Right? So this is the command line interface allows you to trigger an action on the report. Right? For example, example, right now, Tommy, if we build something with the PBIP project format, you can edit the PBIP files, but if you edit them, Power BI Desktop has no recollection of something changing, right? You can add a new visual, you can modify the size of a visual, you can you can adjust things there, but Desktop has

4:04 can adjust things there, but Desktop has no concept of hey, something changed, I need to go update it. So, they’re acting like read-only files, and then when you close Desktop and reopen it, it will reload all of the files from your PBIP, right? The bridge is allowing a specific action to be called to Power BI Desktop saying, “Hey, “Hey, files have changed, go refresh yourself. Go go get the latest data.” So, that is what they call in this trigger a key

4:34 what they call in this trigger a key action. action. Yeah. Yeah. My last point here, I’ll just make is when I started teaching people in FabCon Atlanta Atlanta about using MCP servers, the Fabric Modeling MCP server, making measures, telling the agent to help you build stuff, make the model. One, I absolutely love working with models this way now. Like that that is my preferred method for building models moving forward. So, one, I love that. The second part was in that session, everyone was asking about the in the afternoon, how do we build stuff with

5:04 afternoon, how do we build stuff with the report? How do we get agents to talk to the report? How can we get an agent to manipulate the report? And my best answer was, “Well, we have the PBIP, and you got to do all this clunky work to get it to work.” So, this bridge mode I think at least starts starts to close the gap. It’s a good way to put it. for for agents doing front-end work, Power BI Desktop, visuals, pages, manipulations, and then also some back-end work,

5:34 and then also some back-end work, Power BI Modeling MCP server for doing the changes to the model. So, now we have like two lenses of an agent, front-end and

5:44 lenses of an agent, front-end and back-end. back-end. That’s all I’m going to make my point there before we get into the MCP route. I think this is perfect too because I think talking about before the bridge, the workflow if you were going to in a sense do this all from an agentic point of view. So, if you could use the MCP which was great for the semantic modeling side and the problem was anytime you’re like, “All right, well, I want to actually want to update the page.” My harness would say, “All right, I need you to close Power BI Desktop before we do this.” So, I can work on the pivot files and I go work on

6:15 work on the pivot files and I go work on the Tim Dale files for the report definition because again to your point, there I had a few situations, Mike, where you’re like, “All right, go ahead and make some changes.” I’m like, “I don’t see it.” It’s like, “Oh, well, you saved it after before I made the changes and I had to redo a lot of things in the Tim Dale files, the report definition files, which is a problem. And again, semantic model building, great with the MCP, right? But the actual ability to One thing the bridge also does is not just reload files, right? But it

6:47 just reload files, right? But it actually can capture screenshots, not just for building the report and building visuals, but you can actually take a look at screenshots rather than flying blind, you can actually it will actually have validated its work. some of the commands that they mentioned that they really said you mentioned that they really said or encouraged was, “Hey, you know or encouraged was, “Hey, you know or encouraged was, “Hey, what we like you to do is why are know what we like you to do is why are you actually build a new report page? Why don’t we actually go through and, replicate this and I want to I want to do it with a few of the other

7:18 want to do it with a few of the other items.” One thing it mentions though too and I would highly recommend this just right off the bat, don’t use Power BI Bridge if you’re not using skills. So, I I think that’s going to be a little farther down our conversation here, but I would not recommend it. Really that or MCPs in general. if you’re not using the skills, at least starting off with the ones that Microsoft has, the fa- for fabric. They have report planning, report authoring. It’s going to work okay, but it’s not

7:49 It’s going to work okay, but it’s not going to be something I would publish. Nothing I’ve done without skills has been something that I would be proud of building myself. Yeah, the skills for fabric get repo really it it doesn’t I’m going to I’m going to say dials in, but I think it really it hones in the experience of the AI. It really it allows the AI to really like focus its attention onto some appropriate good outcomes. It gives you a much better outcome. Yeah, I agree with

8:19 much better outcome. Yeah, I agree with that, Tommy, and also a couple other commands that are available part of this bridge, right? You can check the report state. So, one of the other commands is if you’re editing in desktop and you have made some changes, think of it this way. At least this is how my mental model works. When you’re editing in Power BI Desktop, until you hit save, hit save, the PBIP files are not actually updated. Right, that’s a good point. BI Desktop has to somewhat either keep track or do something. So, there there is things that you’re

8:50 there there is things that you’re editing that are unsaved. And so, one of these skills or one of these features of the gateway is you can check the report state. It returns information about the currently open file, like,, what pages there are, PBIP objects, those things. And then it checks if there are any unsaved changes, right? I made a new visual, I made a new page. It knows that that is net new and has not been saved down to files or the PBIP project piece. So, that So, that’s one. The one you mentioned also, Tommy,

9:21 The one you mentioned also, Tommy, taking screenshots is actually quite impressive. Yeah. Yeah. You say, “Hey, I need a screen So, that’s to validate that it did it right, right? Hey, I want a line chart that does this.” The agent can go take its own screenshot, look at the screenshot, and verify that it actually made the visual with information that’s on it and it’s not broken. And if it sees that it didn’t make it, it can go back and loop itself again and go build try it again, right? That didn’t work. I’m going to try another one, right? So, that’s another one that’s really interesting there is getting the report snapshots.

9:52 there is getting the report snapshots. And then what I said earlier, which is like reload from disk, which is like basically,, hey, the PBIP files have changed. I want you to now refresh the report and get the the new changes there. there. So, let me ask you then with what we know about desktop bridge and unless you want to cover anything more that we haven’t, I I think if I’m a user just hearing this for the first time in the first 10 minutes here, well, where am I using it? And I think there’s a few things I want to cover with you today as we go through this because again, we can talk to you about

10:23 because again, we can talk to you about how to do it, but our my favorite conversations with you, Mike, are that the water cooler side and there’s two things I really want to explore. Mhm. Mhm. When and what harness or tooling should I really use this to be effective? And then who is this for? Because I think,, for you and I, we’re like, yeah, that’s great, but I think there’s a lot of other opportunities here. So, those are kind opportunities here. So, those are the two main things I want to explore of the two main things I want to explore today, but let’s start with the architecture, right? It’s a command line tool. So, this means you got to use a terminal by default in a sense if you

10:56 terminal by default in a sense if you want to manually update this and there’s a lot of commands. There’s a bridge manifest manifest command that simply shows you all the available options of what you can, you available options of what you can,, do or the actions that you can do know, do or the actions that you can do in bridge. But, Mike, I know that in cloud desktop and cloud code and any IDE such as VS Code or Cursor, well, it can install command line tools and run it NPMs and do a lot of things for the terminal for me. So, let me ask you straight off, would you

11:25 let me ask you straight off, would you use this by yourself just in the terminal on your own or are you seeing this purely from an agentic point of view? view? Oh, that’s a good question. Yes. I have not seen any use cases that I’m aware of that would make that would really cause me to use this as like I’m just going to go run to the command line and just go do things. Right now, everything I’ve been playing with using this for this for has all been 100% through an agent. An agent is available. I’m I’m telling the agent to do things. And I think that’s

11:55 agent to do things. And I think that’s really where most people are coming from. Even recently, Tommy, I was just having some conversations with some customers. And companies are now making the decision we’re going to use Claude. We’re giving out Claude licenses to various users of our organization. And then they’re like, well, how can I talk to or interact with models and or reports, right? I’ve seen other organizations giving out GitHub Copilot licenses, right? That That’s something

12:25 licenses, right? That That’s something people are just getting access to, right? With these access of to these licenses, now you have access to these large agents. It’s funny, Mike, because I I what you said here Jensen Huang, who’s the co-founder of Nvidia You’re going to have to say this one for me. me. Nvidia. Nvidia. Nvidia. Thank you. I even though I use it all the time. Anyways, Yeah. He mentioned that if he’s paying someone $500, 000 a developer and he asked him how many tokens they used and it wasn’t a lot, he would be pissed. He

12:55 it wasn’t a lot, he would be pissed. He said he was like he would be beside himself, I think was the quote, in terms of why didn’t you use the tokens that were given to you. So, it’s interesting you say that about the Claude side, but it’s also funny, too, because I want you to imagine that we’re in 2018 and Power BI Desktop Bridge came out. Would it actually be helpful? Like would it be something like, “Whoa, this is awesome.” awesome.” I don’t think so. Like I was thinking about this and I’m like even this is a tooling that could have been available before agents. But I’m like thinking about it. I’m

13:25 But I’m like thinking about it. I’m like, would it really be something I’d would go, “Oh, neat. Can’t wait to use it?” it?” Mhm. Mhm. Probably not. Like,, taking screenshots, refreshing the page in the terminal. Well, at the time, I had tabular editor, and, that it just doesn’t seem as effective really without an agentic solution. Like, this was built for agents. They they didn’t build this for developers. This was built because agents exist. Yes. Yes. And I think I think right now the Tommy the trend I’m seeing is just it’s much

13:56 the trend I’m seeing is just it’s much with And again, I think with your comment earlier around the skills Mhm. Mhm. that people need to use with the agent is incredibly important comment because these tools, they are effective, but not without really good skills behind them to really support like, how do we use this tool? What does the CLI need to do? What context do I need to give to the agent so it understands how to properly leverage the tool? So, I think you’re really right there, Tommy. I think these tools in concert with the skills for

14:27 tools in concert with the skills for Fabric Fabric Right. Right. is really designing out a system where I can stop talking or stop clicking buttons in desktop and in the model, and instead I can start moving more towards AI agents, agentic experiences where I just tell it what I want, and it gives me at least a first pass, right? A lot of times right now, it’s the first pass that is the most click heavy, intense, right? And And I guess I would say it this way.

15:01 When you when you look at a model when you when you build with models or AI things, it does a really good job getting you a first shot at whatever you’re building. The website, the Raythen project, the Power BI report, the semantic model. Does a good job getting started. It will build something. It’ll do something. And it gets you I would say maybe 75, maybe even 80% of the way there. And if you add skills, it gets even closer to what you want. It’s more,, part of your skills are when we make measures, they’re always in folders. Here’s how we Here’s our naming

15:31 Here’s how we Here’s our naming conventions, right? You can give the agent some things that actually help align. align. But usually there’s a a longer tail on this. Their changes are not major, but the changes are enough where you’re saying, I need to make a lot of refinement changes. It’s like tweaking, right? There’s the large changes at the beginning, and then there’s this long tail of like change this one button to do this. Change this one color to do that. Add a drop shadow. Like these very like nuanced things that has your style and preference on top of what you’re building.

16:01 building. You may or may not know exactly how to prompt that when you start. However, over time, you can you get better at that, and hopefully, as you do those, the technique or trick here is take that and turn those little nuanced items do a couple of those refinement steps, and then turn them into skills that you can use again for your next process. So, it it’s this long tail of like refinement that continually happens on apps and

16:31 that continually happens on apps and with agents, and it brings the expectation of what you built closer to what you want, right? And And then the idea is how can you make skills around closing that gap faster? And you just have to do it. You just have to use the AI and tweak it, and then every say after you’re done, say, say, “Hey, learn what Stop. Pause. Think about what you just did. Go incorporate that into a skill.” I think it’s important to not to under just undervalue skills the same that

17:01 just undervalue skills the same that they’re shortcuts. For example, where I don’t have to give that full command at the beginning. With that’s part of it,

17:07 the beginning. With that’s part of it, but the I think the bigger point here is again, your particular style or your particular design., that is just part of again, your recipe, right? It’s really your own personal touch with that proper instructions. Again, just thinking about this where you could go into the the bridge without skills and say, “Well, I want everything in these color schemes or,, I don’t want one a lot of ink and a lot of extra text.” Okay, well, you need to update this. You need to update this. And we go back and

17:38 to update this. And we go back and forth. Well, with a skill, and I have one called the ink to text ratio from a podcast what you did. Yep. Yep. Which understands the a simple theory that came out back in the day. We talked about it in a previous episode where as little ink or text as possible. Tufte, I think is the name of the gentleman who came up with it. I think it’s Tufte. Yeah. When you’re showing visualizations, as little text as possible to get the point across. And that can be very tedious if you’re not using that skill. And Mike, I I actually for listeners here, I want to make it

18:09 for listeners here, I want to make it crystal clear. Mike and I are not just blowing smoke about skills. Me and Mike are nerds about this. I What was it, yesterday or a few weeks ago? We were literally I was like, “I’ll trade you a skill.” I felt like Pokémon. Like, I’m I’m just going to trade you a Pokémon because I’m like, “I like the way you did I’ll trade you one in return.” I did I’ll trade you one in return.”, these are really essential, I mean, these are really essential, I think, just to the development and just to go off not on a tangent, but just to go my hot take route here. I honestly think if I’m hiring someone who’s no idea what skills are in the Power BI world,

18:40 Power BI world, it’s going to be a negative point. You it’s going to be a negative point., it’s not going to be in your know, it’s not going to be in your favor. So, that’s the skill part here. But, Mike, why use the desktop bridge if I already have the MCP server? And I think that’s one thing I’ve been thinking about as well because I can do a a ton with the MCP server. Right? I a a ton with the MCP server. Right?, it can cover a ton of ground. So, mean, it can cover a ton of ground. So, what is that added enhancement for me when it comes to using Power BI desktop bridge? bridge? And to me, it really is, I think, what

19:10 And to me, it really is, I think, what we’re talking about with that screenshot ability to see the report state and to do my iterations that way. That’s very difficult to do just in Timdol, even if you’re using something like Agentic. Correct. I would agree, especially in the the your your your model the harness has no concept of getting screenshots off of that PBIP project.

19:42 screenshots off of that PBIP project. There’s just no way for it to see the rendered version of what you built. And so, I think this is really why it’s important to have the desktop bridge in in place cuz that that piece again adds eyes to a lot of what the agent can do and see. And so, there’s always this part of part of, agents only can they only look at code, right? They’re really good at looking at the code and can understand a lot from there, but as soon as you start sending images to it two two words of caution maybe. One, that’s expensive, right? So, every time

20:13 that’s expensive, right? So, every time you send an image to an agent, it’s going to use a good amount of tokens. So, just be aware that’s what it’s doing. On the flip side though,, it does add value and effects to to you. It gives you user the more capability to like have it understand what’s going on inside the report. So, I I think it’s a double-edged sword. Yes, it’s good. We should use it, but I also don’t use it heavily. I use it sparingly cuz cuz I don’t want to like eat up all my tokens. So, if if I can send specific text or if I can do a better job just describing what I

20:43 do a better job just describing what I want and how I want it to manipulate the page, I’m trying to use that more. Also, skills I think are a little bit more lightweight than images. So, it depends on how Well, I think it’s an essential part. Have you used the Claude Chrome extension at all? I have not. Okay. So, this is to me I why I’m saying that screenshot thing is so impactful. And this is actually now available on Notion. So, and I think a lot more things are going to support it. It’s really that browser automation. If you

21:13 really that browser automation. If you use Claude, I would highly recommend to use the Chrome extension, the Claude extension. Now, it works okay with Edge. I really only have Chrome on my computer just for the Claude extension. But, what it actually can do is interact with the page. But, what you’ll notice what it does, Mike, is every state that it changes, it actually takes this quick screenshot. For example, you wanted to,, in a sense buy something on Amazon. Well, it will take a screenshot, see where the search bar is, click on it, type, see

21:45 search bar is, click on it, type, see where the, enter button is. It will look at the different products. If there’s a drop down, it’ll take a screenshot every single time to see what the available options are. And it’s pretty fast. And the yes, it may eat up a lot of tokens, but it’s really the only way that you’re going to be able to in a sense speak the have the agent speak the same language you are. It sees what you see. And I think unlike with the MCP, which you have to go back and forth, go I have to open up Power BI Desktop now, and then take a look at the visuals. Well, we’re

22:17 take a look at the visuals. Well, we’re going to do that in real time together. It’s like, “No, that’s not what I want. Let’s do a quick iteration here. You’re close.” And it really does, I think, complete complete the circle when you think about building in Power BI. Mhm. Mhm. Which leads me to my question. Okay, go ahead. ahead. Okay. No, go ahead. Answer your question., we’re going to probably wrap up in final thoughts on this one. this one. Yeah, which leads me to my question. Who’s this for? Who’s it like who are the audiences here for Bridge? Because obviously, you and I are going to use

22:47 obviously, you and I are going to use it. You and I are already using it.

22:49 it. You and I are already using it. But, again, let’s take that enterprise approach here. You can take a managed self-service approach. Do I want Do I want my entire organization or the who are developers to use MCP agents and Power BI Desktop Bridge to build everything. And if that’s the case, I always go back to the hiring point of view because I to the hiring point of view because, Mike, you’ve we’ve now eliminated mean, Mike, you’ve we’ve now eliminated all all barriers to someone getting started with Power BI with no skills, so to speak. Maybe some data viz theory,,

23:21 Maybe some data viz theory,, background, but outside of that, dashboard in a day is basically gone. So, just my ending here, closing here I see this very much for you and I. It can easily be used by someone who’s a novice, a noob, whatever you want to call it in Power BI, but the jury’s out for me if I actually want to in a sense allow that. unless, I’ll say the caveat, unless there’s a set of skills that are built

23:51 there’s a set of skills that are built in the organization. We’ve already talked about managed skills that they have to use, like the certain prompts are designed for the organization. So, I’ll ask you here, I’ll throw it over to you on your court here, who’s the intended user? Is it MVPs? Is it developers? Or is it just like everyday report authors or just people who are just getting started? I think since we’re in the early preview,, I believe this desktop bridge is in preview, so it’s not really officially out yet. too. too. So, trying to get some run cycles in. So

24:26 today, so since it’s in preview, since it’s new and and usually Microsoft refines an experience over time, it gets better as you as you use it as they refine as they tweak it. so, I I think over time this will become a common everyday everyone will use it. This will be something that you’re always going to use as it’ll be for the report builders. Right. Right. And what it won’t be for report consumer, right? We’re going to still keep those individuals away from the creation experience, but I think for anyone creating a report, this is something that’s going to be useful.

24:57 something that’s going to be useful. the effectiveness of the of the gateway the the effectiveness of creating reports with an agent an agent I think will depend on the skills that are produced or the skills that you’re using. using. And I think the gap here is there’s a knowledge gap occurring between between these new tools that are appearing, right? The Power BI gateway, the modeling MCP server. These are tools that exist and are at

25:27 These are tools that exist and are at our disposal. They’re not technical tools in my opinion. It they’re much Those tools are designed or geared towards people getting simple results just by talking to an agent and and a model. I could really fully see this being like part of Cloud Co-work or,, just a chat window that you talk to. And again, also the harnesses are getting better and better over time, too, Tommy. So,, even the harnesses are getting more simplified, easier to use, less complicated. There’s a lot of bells

25:57 less complicated. There’s a lot of bells and whistles under the hood potentially cuz it is technical, but as the as the general public knowledge of like what agents are doing and everyone’s installing some desktop application. Maybe it’s Codex. Maybe it’s Cloud Code’s app. Maybe it’s something of the VS Code there’s GitHub Copilot app, Yeah, that just came out, yeah. So, there’s like three major apps that you can use that are Yes, they’re technical. Yes, they work with files, but they obfuscate away

26:27 files, but they obfuscate away some of the technical pieces. Tommy, I did a a recent video with the Replit team and Replit is a team that designed and built is working with building the Ray project, right? So, you can go to Replit and build something there and then it will you’ll be able to go over and from Replit publish into powerbi. com using Ray. This is amazing. This is exactly what we want. So, if we if we step back and look at what the things that are being getting built here, these tools are taking really technical things and

26:57 taking really technical things and watering them down. The technical workload part of it is being handled by the agent. And then the simplification of that is allowing me to talk to it and ask the agent questions and it we’re using the agent as reasoning elements to build what we want to build. So, I think the intended use of this, to answer your question directly, the intended use of this is for everyday report builders. Anyone who rebuilds report, this is for you. Is it ready right now to just open this

27:27 Is it ready right now to just open this up and give it to everyone in the organization? [snorts] [snorts] Probably not. I’m probably going to go seek out people that are really sharp, understand this and have a hunger to learn this because there’s a pretty good learning curve. I don’t want to say heavy, heavy, but there’s a there’s a medium level learning curve on what you can do with it. And you just got to be comfortable stepping in and just saying, saying, I I’m just going to figure it out. I’m just going to play with some stuff. I’m just going to adjust and and play and move around here and I may get good

27:57 move around here and I may get good results, I may get bad results, but you’re going to figure out how to use it. it. I do expect people to understand what a skill is. skill is. And the thing that we don’t have right now, Tommy, is a good distribution method for getting skills into people’s hands. There’s some things that are coming out of VS Code, but again, it’s a bit more technical. We need something a bit more lightweight that just makes it really easy for you to point a pile of skills at a certain project folder, Power BI report and it just knows how to do it. I I would completely agree. I think a huge part, whether it’s MCPs or desktop

28:29 huge part, whether it’s MCPs or desktop bridge, I don’t think desktop bridge is

28:31 bridge, I don’t think desktop bridge is a separate entity than that. I think that it’s part of the same workflow and just like we said with MCP servers, Mike, Mike, you’re going to need a organization or govern skills. I think for this to be something that you want to really produce or,, in a sense, release, so the reports are consistent. but outside of that, I think the desktop bridge is a huge win for us, and if I’m a developer, and I already have the MCP, or my organization is more forward-facing on that, I’m going to be

29:03 forward-facing on that, I’m going to be like, “Look, we need to take a look at this. We need to do a pilot with this. How well can we use it?” Mhm. Mhm. Agree. I I I think I think we’re going to have to like figure that part out yet. I think I think it’s Right now, I would say I think it’s useful. It is value-adding for me, and I’m regularly enjoying the experience without then not having it, right? Yeah. Last question for it’s a net positive for me.

29:33 it’s a net positive for me. Do I have all the answers on how the best way to use it? Probably not yet. I’m still working through that part. Last question for you, and then we can close it out. If you had an organization, you’re director BI, and one person rogue-ly was using desktop bridge,, this was not something you released, would you be mad, happy? Where would you I think your feedback be if you just had a a single individual using it? I wouldn’t I

30:03 well, it depends. If they’re using their own cloud subscription on their own without an enterprise or some organization behind it, that that I’ll be like, “You’re making a security gap. There’s a there’s a security hole in what you’re doing.” Right? So, first and foremost, is you if you’re going to use cloud, if you’re going to use AI agents, you want to have you want to make sure whatever you’re using and whatever harness you’re using it in has a zero retention data policy, meaning the data that you send in the prompts are not being analyzed and trained on the next set of models, cuz you don’t want your code or your reports or your data

30:33 code or your reports or your data showing up in training information. So, for one, that’s what’s happening. So, So, if that’s happening, I’ll I would be like, “Look, we need to shut this down.” Now, how do we shut this down? That’s another different all different question. That’s a whole other episode, but that in that regard, I would be mad. On the other hand, I do think organizations are going to start opening up., up., GitHub Copilot, Cloud Code, if you’re giving users those experiences, I’m going to assume

31:03 going to assume users may experiment with this. And then in that case, I’ll be like, “All right, great. Teach me Teach me what. What did you learn?” Right? So, to me, I think really the the decision point for this is does your company allow agents to assist with your workflows? Right? And if you are saying yes, that is acceptable to you, and you’re going to allow that to happen, great. Just be prepared. [snorts] [snorts] They’re going to figure out creative ways of doing things. And the tools that you give them, desktop and other things,

31:33 you give them, desktop and other things, you’re going to be able to manipulate and and edit those things. Tommy, one area I think would be really useful here. Well, I’m working with the client right now, and we have Power BI Desktop Report Builder. Builder. Mhm. Mhm. Desktop Desktop Report Power BI That poor guy. Paginated report Paginated report building needs a bridge. We need to be able to talk to that thing with agents, cuz that that would seems that seems a lot more useful to me to tell the agents to go do things there. So, from from

32:04 to go do things there. So, from from [snorts] that perspective,, desktop is I’m happy that that one’s there. I could really use a Power BI Report Builder. Cuz no one knows what that language is. No one knows, but I’m just saying, that’s even more useful to me because that’s something that we’re going to use. We’re going to build things with it, but like I don’t know if everyone wants to spend the time to learn how to build paginated reports. They just want to describe and get the answers out. So, Anyways, that that being said, I think that’s the answer to my question, Tommy. Do you have other any

32:34 question, Tommy. Do you have other any other thoughts before we wrap? I I honestly, I think you said that perfectly. I think the biggest thing is if you already have a AI solution or really a program in place and I know someone is using it. It’s like all right, share with us what you’re doing just to see if we can roll this into our our our greater process. But outside of that you would be concerned just to your point about especially like where that data is actually being sent. But this is a win. This is absolutely win. Is it a game changer? I think it’s part of MCPs. I would put it under that umbrella.

33:05 under that umbrella. but that’s all I got man. Awesome. With that being said, thank you very much for listening to the Explicit Measures podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode around the Desktop Bridge. Useful tool. Think you should try it out. Go get yourself a secure Claude or subscription to some agent, GitHub Copilot, something like that and start playing with it. I think you will enjoy it. That being said, Tommy, where else can you find the podcast? You can find us on Apple, Spotify, wherever your podcast. Make sure to subscribe and leave a rating. It helps us out a ton. Do you have a question, idea, or topic that you want us to talk about on a future episode? Head over to

33:36 about on a future episode? Head over to powerbitips/podcast. Leave your name and a great question. And finally, join us live every Tuesday and Thursday a. m. Central on all of Power BI Tips social media channels. Thank you all very much and we’ll see you next time. Explicit Measures pump it up BI high. Tommy and Mike lighting up the sky. Dance to the data, laughs in the mix. Fabric and AI get your fix. Explicit Measures, drop the beat now. How can these kings feel the crown?

34:07 How can these kings feel the crown? Explicit Measures, drop the beat.

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