A is incorrect: Copy activity is designed for data movement between stores with basic column mapping, not for complex multi-step transformations like deduplication, normalization, and enrichment. It lacks the transformation capabilities needed for preparing AI-ready grounding data. Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/concepts-pipelines-activities
B is incorrect: Azure Databricks notebooks require writing Python, Scala, or R code, which contradicts the team's requirement for a code-free approach. While Databricks is powerful for data transformation, it is not the appropriate recommendation when the engineering team explicitly prefers visual, code-free development. Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/transform-data
C is incorrect: While Power Query provides code-free data wrangling, it is designed for less formal, exploratory data preparation scenarios. For large-scale enterprise transformations requiring deduplication and normalization, mapping data flows provide more robust capabilities and better performance optimization. Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/wrangling-overview
D is correct: Mapping data flows provide code-free, visually designed data transformations executed on scaled-out Apache Spark clusters, supporting complex operations like deduplication, normalization, and enrichment at enterprise scale. They are the recommended code-free approach for complex data preparation scenarios in Azure Data Factory. Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/concepts-data-flow-overview