Rajeev Pentyala – Technical Blog on Power Platform, Azure and AI

In this beginner-friendly blog post, I will walk through the step by step process of using Microsoft Foundry , covering:

• Create a Foundry resource in Azure
• Deploy a model
• Build an AI agent
• Test and publish the agent

What is Microsoft Foundry?

• Microsoft Foundry is a unified Azure platform-as-a-service offering for enterprise AI operations, model builders, and application development.
• It brings together:
  • Access to foundation models
  • Tools to build and test AI agents
  • Prompt engineering and evaluation tools
  • Deployment and integration capabilities
• Developers can use Microsoft Foundry to quickly build AI-powered applications using models from Microsoft, OpenAI, and other providers.

Prerequisites:

• An Azure account with an active subscription. If you don’t have one, create a free Azure account, which includes a free trial subscription.

Create Azure Foundry Resource:

• Sign in to the Azure Portal.
• Search for Foundry.

• Click on Create a resource

• Fill the details and then click Review + Create and create the resource.

• Once the resource is ready, click on Go to resource

• Click on Go to Foundry portal

• You will be redirected to Microsoft Foundry portal where AI development happens.

Deploy a Model:

• Select Discover in the upper-right navigation. Select Models.
• This opens the Model Catalog, where you can explore available AI models.

• For this example, I selected the model: gpt-5.1-codex-mini. Click on Deploy

• Once the deployment is completed, you will be redirected to the model summary screen.

Build an Agent:

• After the model deploys, you’re automatically moved to the Build section.
• Select Create agent and give it a name.
• Select the gpt-5.1-codex-mini model which we deployed in previous step.

• You can also provide Instructions that define how the agent should behave. These instructions act as the system prompt for the agent.
• Once configured, you can start interacting with the agent.

Preview and Test the Agent

You can preview your agent before publishing it.

• Click on Preview agent

• In preview mode, you can:
  • Ask questions
  • Test responses
  • Validate the instructions you configured
  • Adjust behavior if needed
• This helps ensure your agent behaves the way you expect before publishing it.

Publish the Agent:

• Once you are satisfied with the agent behavior, click Publish agent.

• Publishing makes the agent available for integration with other Microsoft platforms, like, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft Foundry Agents vs Copilot Studio Agents:

You might be wondering: “If both platforms can create AI agents, what is the difference?”. The short answer is:

• Copilot Studio : Is designed for business users, makers, and IT teams who want to build agents quickly with low-code or no-code tools.
• Microsoft Foundry : Gives you full control over the AI application lifecycle, including models, prompts, tools, evaluation, and deployment

🙂