At its annual Ignite conference, Microsoft introduced the Azure AI Foundry, a new platform consolidating several of its AI services for enterprises under one system. The Azure AI Studio serves as the management console and portal for this Foundry, focusing on building generative AI applications. Jessica Hawk, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Data, AI, and Digital Applications, stated, "Business leaders aim to minimize the time and cost of launching AI solutions while continuously monitoring their performance and ROI. Therefore, we're thrilled to introduce Azure AI Foundry as a unified platform for your entire organization in the AI era. " This Foundry aims to connect advanced AI technologies with practical business applications, enabling organizations to maximize AI's potential efficiently. The Foundry includes Microsoft’s model catalog, featuring both closed and open weight foundation models, task models, and industry-specific models. It integrates existing Azure AI tools such as Azure AI Search, AI Agents, AI Content Safety, and Azure Machine Learning. A new component, the Azure AI Foundry SDK, currently in preview, offers a unified toolchain for "customizing, testing, deploying, and managing AI apps and agents with enterprise-grade control, " according to Microsoft. To assist developers, 25 prebuilt app templates will be available to facilitate the integration of AI services into their applications. Developers can access the portal (formerly Azure AI Studio) to find and evaluate AI models, services, and tools, along with a new management center.

This will help teams "manage and optimize AI apps at scale, " including handling resource utilization, access privileges, and connected resources. Essentially, it's an enhanced dashboard. Also announced is the inclusion of the Azure AI Agent Service, available next month, which allows developers to orchestrate multiple AI tools to create agents for automating business processes. This will feature options like bring-your-own-storage and private networking to ensure private business data remains secure. Hawk explains, "In a market crowded with various technologies, we designed Azure AI Foundry to thoughtfully meet the diverse needs within organizations seeking AI transformation. It's about more than offering advanced tools; it's about fostering collaboration between technical teams and business strategy. "