All-natural? We tried...
For those wondering why Microsoft did not simply go the whole hog and opt for an all-natural-language approach, skipping the Power FX scripting part, Lamanna admitted it had been tried, but "was just not effective enough for us to ever release it."
As for preparing the model to allow the parsing to occur, Lamanna said the approach was twofold. First, the software had to be engineered to translate normal words we use everyday into Power Fx formulas. "There's just the language itself [Power Fx] and expressions," he said, along with the Common Data Model Microsoft is keen on customers using.