Less models in ai foundry that supports agentic use

hi Hariteja2189​ Great question — this is a common point of confusion when moving from the general model catalog to the Agents feature within Azure AI Foundry.

Here’s the real reason:

Only Certain Models Are Designed for “Agentic” Workloads

Agentic features (tools, function-calling, planning, multi-step reasoning, memory, tool orchestration, etc.) require models that support:

• Function calling / tool calling
• Structured outputs
• Deterministic reasoning APIs
• Long context support
• Agent control signals
• Safe + predictable action execution
• Azure governance requirements

Most of the 11,000+ models in the model catalog (HuggingFace, Open source, Community, Research) do not implement these capabilities.

That’s why only a subset of enterprise-ready models can be used to build Agents.

Why So Few Models Right Now?

Because Agentic systems require:

Strict security

Predictable function behavior

Tool compatibility

Azure policy compliance

Safety alignment

Enterprise-grade reliability

Most community or open models do not meet these requirements yet.

Microsoft has intentionally started with ~18 models that are:

• fully validated
• safe for enterprise agents
• tested to support tool-calling
• optimized for long-running, multi-step agent tasks

Are More Models Coming? — YES

Yes — Microsoft is already working on expanding support.

Expect support to grow for:

🔹 Llama-3.1 agentic-capable models

🔹 Phi-3 / Phi-4 updates

🔹 Mistral tool-calling models

🔹 Meta’s future agentic-tuned models

🔹 Additional Azure OpenAI models

🔹 Select vendor-hosted third-party models (when they meet agentic requirements)

But every model must first pass:

• safety checks
• function-calling interoperability
• agent policy compliance
• latency and reliability validation

so rollout is incremental, not bulk.