Construct and scale AI brokers with Microsoft Foundry

Brokers are reshaping software program. Now not mere assistants, they’re turning into dynamic collaborators layered inside our on a regular basis instruments.

One 12 months in the past, at Microsoft Ignite, we got down to redefine enterprise intelligence with Foundry. Our conviction was clear: software program would evolve past inflexible workflows, turning into methods that motive, adapt, and act with objective. We envisioned builders transferring from prescriptive logic to shaping clever habits.

Right this moment, that transformation is accelerating throughout industries and organizations of each measurement. The shift is tangible: brokers are now not simply assistants, they’re dynamic collaborators, seamlessly built-in into the instruments we use daily. For builders, brokers are reshaping software program, and we’re delivering a platform that empowers each developer and each enterprise to embrace this second with confidence and management.

Microsoft Foundry helps builders in all places flip imaginative and prescient into actuality with a modular, interoperable, and safe agent stack. From code to cloud, immediately demonstrates our give attention to empowering builders with a strong, easy—and trusted—path to manufacturing AI apps and brokers. Right here is the TL;DR:

1. Foundry Fashions added new fashions from Anthropic, Cohere, NVIDIA, and extra. Mannequin router is now usually obtainable in Microsoft Foundry and in public preview in Foundry Agent Service. 
2. Foundry IQ, now in public preview, reimagines retrieval-augmented era (RAG) as a dynamic reasoning course of, simplifying orchestration and enhancing response high quality. 
3. Foundry Agent Service now provides Hosted Brokers, multi-agent workflows, built-in reminiscence, and the flexibility to deploy brokers on to Microsoft 365 and Agent 365 in public preview. 
4. Foundry Instruments, empowers builders to create brokers with safe, real-time entry to enterprise methods, enterprise logic, and multimodal capabilities.
5. Foundry Management Aircraft, now in public preview, centralizes identification, coverage, observability, and safety indicators and capabilities for AI builders in a single portal. GitHub Superior Safety and Microsoft Defender integration, now in public preview, helps enhance collaboration between safety and growth groups throughout the complete app lifecycle.
6. Foundry Native, now in personal preview on Android, the world’s most generally used cell platform.
7. Managed Occasion on Azure App Service, now in public preview, helps organizations transfer their internet functions to the cloud with only a few configuration modifications. 

All of it begins with builders, and GitHub is the world’s largest developer neighborhood, now serving over 180 million builders. AI-powered instruments and brokers in GitHub are serving to builders transfer quicker, construct more and more modern apps, and modernize legacy methods extra effectively. Greater than 500 million pull requests have been merged utilizing AI coding brokers this 12 months, and with AgentHQ, coding brokers like Codex, Claude Code, and Jules will probably be obtainable quickly straight in GitHub and Visible Studio Code so builders can go from concept to implementation quicker. GitHub Copilot, the world’s the preferred AI pair programmer, now serves over 26 million customers, serving to organizations like Pantone, Ahold Delhaize USA, and Commerzbank streamline processes and save time.

During the last 12 months, builders have moved from experimentation to manufacturing. They want instruments that permit them design, check, monitor, and enhance clever methods with the identical confidence they’ve in conventional software program. That’s why we constructed a brand new era of AI-powered instruments: GitHub Agent HQ for unified agent administration, Customized Brokers to encode area experience, and “deliver your individual fashions” to empower groups to adapt and innovate. With Copilot Metrics, groups evolve with knowledge, not guesswork.

We’re dedicated to giving each developer the instruments to design, check, and enhance clever methods, to allow them to flip concepts into affect, quicker than ever. Managed Occasion on Azure App Service, now in public preview, lets organizations transfer present .NET functions to the cloud with only some configuration modifications.

Enter Microsoft Foundry: The AI app and agent manufacturing unit

Enterprises want a constant basis to construct intelligence at scale. With Microsoft Foundry, we’re unifying fashions, instruments, and information into one open system, empowering organizations to run high-performing agent fleets and clever workflows throughout their enterprise.

Right this moment, groups can select from over 11,000 frontier fashions in Foundry, together with optimized options for scale and specialised fashions for scientific and industrial breakthroughs. I’m proud to announce Rosetta Fold 3, a next-generation biomolecular construction prediction mannequin developed with the Institute for Protein Design and Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab. Fashions like these allow researchers and enterprises to deal with the world’s hardest issues with state-of-the-art know-how.

Right here is our prime Ignite information for Foundry:

1. Use the suitable mannequin for each process with Foundry Fashions

Innovation thrives on adaptability and selection. With greater than 11,000 fashions, Microsoft Foundry provides the broadest mannequin choice on any cloud. Foundry Fashions empowers builders to benchmark, evaluate, and dynamically route fashions to optimize efficiency for each process.

Right this moment’s bulletins embody:

• Beginning immediately, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5, Opus 4.1, and Haiku 4.5 fashions can be found in Foundry, advancing our mission to present clients alternative throughout the business’s main frontier fashions, and making Azure the one cloud providing each OpenAI and Anthropic fashions. Additionally this week, Cohere’s main fashions be a part of Foundry’s first-party mannequin lineup, offering final mannequin alternative and adaptability.
• Mannequin router (usually obtainable) permits AI apps and brokers to dynamically choose the best-fit mannequin for every immediate—balancing price, efficiency, and high quality. Plus, in mannequin router in Foundry Agent Service (public preview), permits builders to construct extra adaptable and environment friendly brokers; notably useful for multi-agent methods. mannequin router in Foundry Agent Service (public preview), permits builders to construct extra adaptable and environment friendly brokers; notably useful for multi-agent methods.
• A brand new Developer Tier (public preview) makes mannequin fine-tuning extra accessible by leveraging idle GPU capability.

2. Empower brokers with information utilizing Foundry IQ

The extra context an agent has, the extra grounded, productive, and dependable it’s more likely to be. Foundry IQ, now obtainable in public preview, reimagines retrieval-augmented era (RAG) as a dynamic reasoning course of quite than a one-time lookup. Powered by Azure AI Search, it centralizes RAG workflows right into a single grounding API, simplifying orchestration and enhancing response high quality whereas respecting consumer permissions and knowledge classifications.

Key options embody:

• Simplified cross-source grounding with no upfront indexing.
• Multi-source choice, iterative retrieval, and reflection to dynamically enhance the standard of agent interactions.
• Foundry Agent Service integration to counterpoint agent context in a single, observable runtime.

Foundry already powers greater than 3 billion search queries per day. By combining Foundry IQ with Microsoft Material IQ and Work IQ from Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft supplies an unparalleled context layer for brokers, serving to them join customers with the suitable data on the proper time to make knowledgeable choices.

3. Construct context-aware, action-oriented brokers with Foundry Agent Service

To be drive multipliers, brokers want entry to the identical instruments and information because the individuals they assist. Foundry Agent Service empowers builders to create subtle single and multi-agent methods, connecting fashions, information, and instruments right into a single, observable runtime.

Right this moment’s bulletins embody:

• Hosted Brokers (public preview) allow builders to run brokers constructed with Microsoft frameworks or third-party frameworks in a totally managed atmosphere, to allow them to give attention to agent logic quite than operational overhead.
• Multi-agent workflows (public preview) coordinate specialised brokers to execute multi-step enterprise processes utilizing both a visible designer or a code-first API. Workflows allow long-running, stateful collaboration with restoration and debugging built-in.
• Reminiscence (public preview) permits brokers to securely retain context throughout classes, lowering exterior data-store complexity and enabling extra customized interactions out-of-the-box.
• Microsoft 365 and Agent 365 integration (public preview) permits builders to immediately deploy brokers from Foundry to Microsoft productiveness apps, making it simpler to achieve customers straight throughout the M365 ecosystem whereas leveraging Agent 365 for safe orchestration, governance, and enterprise-grade deployment.

4. Allow brokers to take motion utilizing Foundry Instruments

The appropriate instruments can rework brokers from easy responders into clever problem-solvers. With Foundry Instruments, now in public preview, builders can present brokers with safe, real-time entry to enterprise methods, enterprise logic, and multimodal capabilities to ship enterprise worth.

Now, builders can:

• Discover, join, and handle public or personal MCP instruments for brokers from a single, safe interface.
• Allow brokers to behave on real-time enterprise knowledge and occasions utilizing greater than 1,400 connectors with enterprise methods akin to SAP, Salesforce, and UiPath.
• Enrich workflows with out-of-the-box instruments akin to transcription, translation, and doc processing.
• Expose any API or perform as an MCP instrument through API Administration, reusing present enterprise logic to speed up time-to-value.

5. Advancing safety and belief with Foundry Management Aircraft 

Scaling intelligence requires belief. As organizations depend on brokers and AI powered methods for extra of their workflows, groups want clearer visibility, stronger guardrails, and quicker methods to establish and deal with danger. This 12 months we’re increasing safety and governance with two key bulletins: Foundry Management Aircraft, now in public preview in Microsoft Foundry, and a brand new integration between Microsoft Defender for Cloud and GitHub Superior Safety, additionally in public preview. Collectively they offer builders and safety groups a extra related approach to monitor habits, information entry, and preserve AI methods secure throughout the complete lifecycle.

Foundry Management Aircraft brings identification, controls, observability, and safety collectively in a single place so groups can construct, function, and govern brokers with confidence. Key capabilities embody: 

• Controls that apply unified guardrails throughout inputs, outputs, and power interactions to maintain brokers targeted, correct, and inside outlined boundaries. 
• Observability with in-built evaluations, OTel primarily based tracing, steady crimson teaming, and dashboards that floor insights on high quality, efficiency, security, and value. 
• Safety anchored in Entra Agent ID, Defender, and Purview to offer sturdy identification, coverage pushed entry, built-in knowledge safety, and real-time danger detection throughout the agent lifecycle. 
• Fleet extensive operations that unify well being, price, efficiency, danger, and coverage protection for each agent, irrespective of the place it was constructed or runs, with alerts that floor points the second they seem empowering builders to take motion. 

Defender for Cloud + GitHub Superior Safety integration 

Builders and safety groups typically work in separate instruments and lack shared indicators to prioritize dangers. The brand new Defender for Cloud and GitHub Superior Safety integration closes this hole. Builders obtain AI urged fixes straight inside GitHub, whereas safety groups monitor progress in Defender for Cloud in actual time. This provides each side a quicker, extra related approach to establish points, remediate them, and preserve AI methods safe all through the app lifecycle. 

6. Foundry Native Involves Android: Powering Cloud to Edge  

Six months in the past, we launched Foundry Native on Home windows and Mac. In that quick time, it’s reached 560 million units, making it one of many fastest-growing runtimes in enterprise historical past. Main organizations like NimbleEdge, Morgan Stanley, Dell, and Items are already utilizing Native to deliver intelligence straight into the environments the place work occurs, from monetary providers to healthcare and edge computing.

Right this moment, we’re taking the subsequent step. Foundry Native is now in personal preview on Android, the world’s most generally used cell platform. This implies brokers can run natively on billions of telephones, unlocking real-time inference, privacy-aware computation, and resilience, even the place connectivity is unpredictable. 

We’re additionally saying a brand new partnership with PhonePe, one in all India’s fastest-growing platforms. Collectively, we’ll deliver agentic experiences into on a regular basis client functions, exhibiting how Native can rework not simply enterprise workflows, however each day life at huge scale. 

7. Modernize your internet apps for the period of AI in weeks, not months 

We see clients constructing web new AI functions and integrating AI into present functions. Each require a contemporary basis. Managed Occasion on Azure App Service, obtainable in public preview, lets organizations transfer their .NET internet functions to the cloud with only a few configuration modifications, saving the effort and time of rewriting code. The result’s quicker migrations with decrease overhead, and entry to cloud-native scalability, built-in safety and AI capabilities in Microsoft Foundry.

Study extra and get began with Foundry

We hope you be a part of us at Microsoft Ignite 2025, in-person or just about, to see these new capabilities in motion and find out how they will assist your greatest ambitions for your online business.