Fabric RTI 101: What is Real-Time Intelligence?

This is the start of a new series of blog posts dedicated to Microsoft Fabric Real-Time Intelligence or RTI. I think RTI is an important aspect of Microsoft Fabric, yet it is currently underutilized. I hope to try to help change that.

So why, RTI ?

Let’s start with a simple idea. Real time intelligence (or RTI) is about shrinking the delay between when data is created and when you can act on it. In traditional systems, we’re often used to data being collected, stored, and only analyzed later, maybe overnight or even weekly. That’s fine for long term reporting, but it’s too slow for situations where immediate action matters.

With real time intelligence, we flip that around. As soon as data is generated, whether it’s a sensor reading, a website click, a payment transaction, or a system log entry, we start analyzing it straight away. That means we can detect what’s happening while it’s still happening.

For example, think about fraud detection in banking. If you only discover suspicious activity tomorrow morning when you run a report, it’s already too late. The money is gone. But with real time intelligence, you can flag and even block that transaction instantly.

Or in the industrial world, if a piece of equipment starts overheating, you want to know right now so you can shut it down, not wait for an engineer to see a report about it the next day.

Latency

The other key part here is latency. The shorter the gap between an event and the insight you can draw from it, the more valuable it is. Low latency isn’t just a technical metric. It derives business value directly because it enables action at the right time, and those actions can be either human or automated. Sometimes the system just alerts a person, like a dashboard flashing red for an operator at the times it might automatically respond without human involvement, such as rerouting network traffic, scaling up cloud resources, or adjusting the price of a product online.

Finally, it’s worth noting that this isn’t just a niche capability anymore. Real time intelligence has become a core part of modern data driven systems. Organisations that can sense and respond immediately gain a big competitive advantage, whether that’s in customer experience, operational efficiency or in risk management. So when we talk about real time intelligence in Microsoft Fabric, keep in mind that it’s not just about technology. It’s about enabling faster, smarter decisions in every corner of the business.

Learn more about Fabric RTI

If you really want to learn about RTI right now, we have an online on-demand course that you can enrol in, right now. You’ll find it at Mastering Microsoft Fabric Real-Time Intelligence

2026-01-09