Question

 Is there a way to change the tone or style of the Smart Narrative in Power BI?
I am using the Smart Narrative visual in Power BI to generate automated text summaries, but I want to adjust the tone—such as making the narrative more formal or friendly—or change the phrasing to match my report’s audience. Is there a way to customize the narrative output style, and what are the best practices for controlling its language?

Answer 1

As of now, Power BI’s Smart Narrative visual offers limited direct control over the tone or writing style of the automatically generated summaries. The narrative is generated based on the context of your data and visuals, and while it's helpful for creating quick insights, it doesn’t include built-in settings to switch between tones like formal, friendly, or technical.

However, you can customize the narrative to some extent by manually editing the text within the visual. Smart Narrative allows you to:

• Insert custom text alongside auto-generated values and summaries.

• Use placeholders for dynamic values (like measures or KPIs).

• Rephrase or restructure the content to match your desired communication style.

For best results:

• Use DAX measures with descriptive names that read well in narrative form.

• Combine dynamic and static text strategically to create a polished, human-friendly output.

• Consider duplicating the Smart Narrative and customizing each version for different stakeholder groups if tone variation is required across audiences.