Microsoft Foundry: What It Is and How to Get Started
As organizations accelerate their adoption of AI, one challenge consistently emerges: how to move from experimentation to production at scale in a secure, responsible, and efficient way. Microsoft Foundry exists to address exactly that challenge.
What Is Microsoft Foundry?
Microsoft Foundry is an end-to-end platform experience that brings together Microsoft’s AI development, deployment, and governance capabilities into a unified environment. It enables developers, data scientists, and enterprises to build, customize, deploy, and operate AI solutions, including generative AI, using Microsoft and partner models, tools, and services.
Rather than being a single product, Foundry is a curated and integrated experience that spans model access, tooling, orchestration, evaluation, and enterprise-grade controls.
Why Microsoft Foundry Exists
AI innovation is moving fast, but enterprise adoption requires more than just access to models. Customers need:
- A consistent way to work with multiple models, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and open-source models
- Built-in security, compliance, and responsible AI capabilities
- Tooling that supports the full AI lifecycle, not just prototyping
- Seamless integration with existing data platforms, applications, and cloud operations
Microsoft Foundry was created to reduce friction between experimentation and real-world deployment while aligning AI development with enterprise standards, governance, and scale.
What’s Included in Microsoft Foundry?
Microsoft Foundry brings together several key capabilities:
1. Model Choice and Flexibility
- Access to leading foundation models, including Azure OpenAI models and selected open-source models
- Ability to evaluate and select models based on performance, cost, and use case
2. AI Development and Orchestration Tools
- Prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and grounding with enterprise data
- Tools for building copilots, chat experiences, and AI-powered applications
- Orchestration across tools, APIs, and workflows
3. Evaluation, Safety, and Responsible AI
- Built-in evaluation for quality, latency, and cost
- Content safety, monitoring, and governance controls
- Alignment with Microsoft’s Responsible AI principles
4. Enterprise-Grade Platform Integration
- Native integration with Azure, Microsoft Fabric, Power Platform, and developer tools
- Identity, security, and compliance through Microsoft Entra and Azure controls
- Observability and lifecycle management for production workloads
How to Get Started
Getting started with Microsoft Foundry is straightforward:
- Start in Azure - Use Azure as the control plane to access Foundry experiences and services.
- Explore models and tools - Experiment with available models, build prompts, and prototype AI workflows.
- Ground with your data - Connect enterprise data securely to create more relevant and contextual AI experiences.
- Evaluate and deploy - Use built-in evaluation and safety tools, then deploy AI solutions into production with confidence.
- Scale responsibly - Apply governance, monitoring, and cost controls as adoption grows.
Final Thoughts
Microsoft Foundry represents Microsoft’s vision for enterprise AI done right. It offers flexible model choice, strong development tooling, and built-in trust. By unifying AI development and operations into a single experience, Foundry helps organizations move faster while staying secure, compliant, and future-ready.
Whether you are just starting with generative AI or scaling existing solutions, Microsoft Foundry provides a practical foundation to build on.
Microsoft