Create Your Own AI Lab: Azure AI Foundry in 20 Minutes

A Platform you're going to need to know about...

Jun 29, 2025

Microsoft Build 2025

Microsoft just dropped over 50 groundbreaking announcements about AI and the future of cloud computing.

Azure AI Foundry is Microsoft’s new unified platform for building, managing, and scaling intelligent AI agents, not to be confused with Windows AI Foundry, which focuses on local AI experiences. Azure AI Foundry gives developers the tools to select the right model from a multi model catalog (including integrations with Hugging Face), enrich it with custom knowledge, fine-tune it and orchestrate agents without managing underlying infrastructure. It supports multi agent workflows, tool invocation, secure API access, and evaluation dashboards. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling production AI, it meets developers where they work, with integrations for VS Code, GitHub, and a single API for total control.

This year’s Microsoft Build left me genuinely inspired. If you’re curious to explore more, I’ve got hands on Azure projects waiting on my newsletter’s Homepage.

Highlights

With so much packed into Azure AI Foundry, it’s impossible to cover it all. here are a few highlights you need to see, but seriously take a look yourself…We both know it’s the best way you learn!

Model Catalog

Azure AI Foundry gives you access to a massive collection of models, from open source favorites to the latest flagship models, all in one place. You can filter by provider, industry, collections, capabilities and deployment option.

You can even benchmark metrics like cost and performance. Plus, with Hugging Face integration, you’re literally one click away from hundreds more models you might not have heard of…. yet! Seriously though, I really recommend checking out some of the smaller, more specialised models. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Playgrounds

This is where you can experiment and test the different models in a hands on way. Whether it’s chat, video, images, speech, audio, or language tasks, the Playgrounds give you a low code environment to see how models perform before you deploy. It’s perfect for developers who want to prototype fast, validate ideas, and build with confidence, without setting up infrastructure first.

Agents

Now onto one of the most powerful parts: Agents.
Azure AI Foundry lets you create, customise and orchestrate intelligent agents without managing any of the underlying infrastructure. Each agent can be connected to tools, APIs, and even other agents to complete complex tasks. You can design multi agent workflows, where smaller, specialised agents collaborate, making it easier to build, test, and scale. It’s super easy to work with, secure, and built for actual world use, supporting both human involved processes and fully autonomous systems.

Code

I don’t want to sound like I work in Tech Sales here but “Azure AI Foundry meets developers where they work” You get preconfigured templates and fully hosted cloud development environments ready to go.

Plus, it integrates seamlessly with GitHub, VS Code, and Copilot Studio. If you prefer to stay in your own setup, there’s even a single API so you can build, and deploy your agents directly from your codebase

I’m going to wrap it up here, but there’s still a lot more inside Azure AI Foundry. Here’s a quick look at what else you’ll find:

Evaluation
Assess the quality of your AI outputs with key metrics. You can even set up real time alerts and reporting with shareable dashboards for your org.

Security
Foundry has built in content filtering for both inputs and outputs, helping you keep your models safe and aligned with compliance standards right out of the box.

Fine-Tuning
Easily adapt models to your specific use cases by fine tuning them with your own datasets, no massive infrastructure needed.

I’ve given a high level overview here, but I strongly encourage you to check out the full Build session from MSBuild25 Here Yina and Scott go into the details that will help you stand out as a Developer in 20205.

Thank you for reading: Keep it secure, keep it light-hearted!

WJPearce - CyberBrew

Full Transparency:
This issue was made possible thanks to Microsoft’s support. I only partner with companies I truly believe in, and what they’re doing here genuinely excites me. I’m in this for the long haul and I think learning this stuff will help you stand out.