Renamed — verified 2026-09-30

Microsoft’s docs list the brand history as Azure AI Studio / Azure AI Foundry, now Microsoft Foundry; “Azure AI Services” became Foundry Tools. Older notes and posts using “Azure AI Foundry” refer to the same product.

Microsoft Foundry

by Microsoft (plain text, no company note in the vault)

Azure platform for building, deploying and governing AI agents, models and apps.

See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/what-is-foundry

Overview

Foundry unifies agents, models and tools under one Azure resource with shared RBAC, networking and policy, plus tracing, monitoring and evaluations.

What you can build

• Agents via Foundry Agent Service: declarative prompt agents (including voice-based ones), or hosted agents where you bring your own code or framework (Microsoft Agent Framework, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel) packaged as a container. See microsoft-agent-framework.
• Models: catalog of more than 10,000 models from Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and others.
• Tools and knowledge: Foundry Toolbox (recommended way to add tools), memory (preview) and retrieval (Foundry IQ, powered by Azure AI Search).
• Also listed on the pricing page: Foundry Control Plane and Foundry Local.

Enterprise features

Observability (tracing, evaluation, dashboards in preview), Microsoft Entra identity, content filters, network isolation and Azure Policy. Some capabilities are still preview; check the general-availability overview in the docs.

Developer surfaces

Foundry portal, SDKs (Python, C#, JavaScript, Java; azure-ai-projects 2.x), Azure Developer CLI, VS Code extension, and coding agents (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code) via the Foundry Skill and MCP server.

Migration notes (from the docs)

• Assistants API (Agents v0.5/v1) is replaced by the Responses API (Agents v2); threads/runs become conversations/responses.
• Hub-based projects live in the “Foundry (classic)” portal; new investment targets Foundry projects.
• An Azure OpenAI resource can be upgraded to a Foundry resource keeping endpoint and keys.

Pricing

The platform is free to explore; each service (Models, Agent Service, Foundry IQ, Tools, Control Plane, Local) bills on its own model. A Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan (1-year commitment, 5-15% tiered discounts) is listed. Use the Azure pricing calculator rather than copying numbers: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/ai-foundry/

Anthropic models are also sold as “Claude in Microsoft Foundry”, billed through Azure Marketplace in Claude Consumption Units.

Not verified

Earlier draft claims about xAI models, a “Model Router” and exact 2024-2025 feature-GA dates were not confirmed this session and were removed.

Sources

• What is Microsoft Foundry?, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-foundry/what-is-azure-ai-foundry (canonical https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/what-is-foundry; page updated 2026-09-24), accessed 2026-09-30
• Microsoft Foundry pricing, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/ai-foundry/, accessed 2026-09-30
• Anthropic pricing (Claude in Microsoft Foundry), https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing, accessed 2026-09-30