Getting Started with Azure AI Foundry: A Unified Platform for Enterprise AI
If you’re venturing into building AI-powered applications, especially with generative AI, Azure AI Foundry is a solid place to start. It’s Microsoft’s unified platform that brings together the infrastructure, tools, and responsible AI practices needed to develop, deploy, and manage enterprise-grade AI applications.
What is Azure AI Foundry?
Azure AI Foundry is designed to empower developers and AI teams by offering a centralized, enterprise-ready environment to:
- Build generative AI applications at scale.
- Access and experiment with models from OpenAI, Mistral, Meta, and more.
- Collaborate across teams during the full lifecycle of development.
Whether you’re developing your first proof of concept or scaling to a production-ready AI solution, Azure AI Foundry offers the flexibility and tools you need to move fast and stay compliant.
Key Capabilities
- Explore and test cutting-edge AI models.
- Build and deploy agents using prompt flow, evaluations, and managed compute.
- Monitor and improve applications with built-in debugging, tracing, and usage insights.
Project Types in Azure AI Foundry
Azure AI Foundry supports two project types:
| Capability | Foundry Project | Hub-based Project |
|---|---|---|
| Agents | ✅ General Availability | ✅ Preview |
| Azure OpenAI (Native) | ✅ | Via connections |
| Upload project files | ✅ | |
| File/output isolation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Evaluations | ✅ | ✅ |
| Playground | ✅ | ✅ |
| Prompt Flow | ✅ | |
| Managed Compute | ✅ |
- Use Foundry Projects if you’re focused on building agents or working with models directly.
- Use Hub-based Projects when you need additional features like prompt flow or managed compute resources.
You can identify your project type in the portal via breadcrumb navigation or in the All Resources page:
- Foundry projects are marked with (AI Foundry)
- Hub projects show (Hub) as the parent
Navigating the Azure AI Foundry Portal
The portal is designed around your development lifecycle:
- Define and Explore – Set goals, test different models, and evaluate services.
- Build and Customize – Use SDKs, fine-tuning, and grounding to customize solutions.
- Observe and Improve – Leverage tracing and evaluation tools to refine your application.
You can also customize your left pane to pin the tools you use most. Each project has its own customizable view, and settings are user-specific.
Management Center
The Management Center is where admins or team leads manage:
- Projects and resource assignments
- Quotas and usage
- Access control and permissions
This is especially useful when you’re managing teams working across multiple projects.
Pricing and Region Availability
The platform itself is free to explore, and pricing only applies when you deploy services (e.g., models, APIs, managed compute). Costs also include any connected Azure resources like Storage or Key Vault.
Azure AI Foundry is available in most Azure-supported regions. See regional availability here.
How to Get Started
You can browse the portal and explore model catalogs without signing in. But to unlock full functionality—like saving projects or deploying models—you’ll need an Azure subscription.
To dive in:
- Go to Azure AI Foundry Portal.
- Create a Foundry Project.
- Start exploring models, building agents, and launching applications.
Azure AI Foundry is where ideation meets production. Whether you’re prototyping or deploying at scale, it’s built to support your entire journey. Start building today!
Dynamics Decoded 
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