Partner Blog | Cloud & AI Platforms, Part 5: Innovating with Azure AI apps and agents.
As we wrap up this Cloud & AI Platforms series, I want to focus on where many partners are investing next: building AI apps and agents that move beyond experiments and into production, at scale, with trust built in. Across industries, AI is reshaping how applications are designed, built, and delivered. We are witnessing the shift from point solutions to systems, with Copilots and agents that can reason, act, and collaborate across workflows. That shift is creating both urgency and opportunity for partners. According to IDC research, 68% of global enterprises surveyed are already using generative AI, and another 26% plan to adopt it in the next 12 months. At the same time, organizations are rapidly moving from prebuilt generative AI apps toward customized or custom-built solutions, with IDC projecting that shift from 40% today to 70% in the next 24 months. 1 This is exactly where Azure AI apps and agents come in, empowering customers to operationalize AI faster while keeping security, governance, and oversight front and center. Continue reading here
Driving Global SMB Impact Through AI Powered, Partner Led Digital Sales
Join Siew Hoon Goh, General Manager of Microsoft’s Global Vendor Digital Sales (VDS) organization, as she shares how VDS is transforming SMB engagement through digitally‑scaled, partner‑centric sales motions that deliver impact worldwide. Under her leadership, VDS has become a core engine in Microsoft’s SMB strategy—driving significant YoY revenue growth, pioneering AI‑forward sales capabilities, and strengthening global alignment across Americas, EMEA, and Asia. In this session, Siew Hoon Goh will explore: How VDS empowers thousands of SMB customers by combining digital signals, AI innovation, and partner collaboration at scale. The evolving “digitally initiated, partner closed” model that accelerates customer acquisition, migration, and growth across global markets. FY26 priorities—including AI transformation, CSP growth acceleration, and deeper global‑regional orchestration—that strengthen partner execution and unlock new revenue opportunities. Attendees will gain insight into Microsoft’s fastest‑scaling SMB sales engine and learn how partners can amplify their impact by aligning with VDS’ global motion and leveraging shared best practices, joint planning frameworks, and AI‑powered customer engagement strategies. Register for this IAMCP Enlighten session here Driving Global SMB Impact Through AI Powered, Partner Led Digital Sales
Unleashing New Business Opportunities for Microsoft Partners with PostgreSQL & MySQL on Azure
The latest innovations announced at Microsoft Ignite 2025 for PostgreSQL and MySQL running on Azure are more than just technical upgrades—they’re a launchpad for new business growth, deeper customer engagement, and accelerated digital transformation. Here’s how these advancements can help you deliver greater value and unlock new opportunities for your clients. 1. Introducing Azure HorizonDB: Built for Performance and AI Workloads We’re excited to unveil Azure HorizonDB in private preview—a new, fully managed PostgreSQL service engineered for business and developers alike. HorizonDB is designed for ultra-low latency, high read scale, and built-in AI capabilities, offering seamless scaling up to 192 virtual cores and 128 TB of storage. Deep integration with developer tools, including GitHub Copilot, delivers performance, resilience, and simplicity at any scale. With HorizonDB, teams can: Build AI apps at scale using advanced DiskANN vector indexing, pre-provisioned AI models, semantic search, and unified support for both relational and graph data. Accelerate app development with built-in extensions, including the PostgreSQL extension for Visual Studio Code integrated with GitHub Copilot. Copilot in VS Code is context-aware for PostgreSQL and enables one-click performance debugging. Unlock data insights through deep integrations with Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft Foundry. Expect reliability with enterprise-ready features from day one, including Entra ID integration, Private Link networking, and Azure Defender for Cloud. Business Opportunity: Position your practice as an early adopter and expert in next-generation database solutions. Position your practice as an early adopter and expert in next-generation database solutions by introducing customers to Azure HorizonDB. Use this conversation to offer migration, modernization, and AI-powered application development services leveraging Azure Database for PostgreSQL with future migrations to HorizonDB. Help clients build resilient, high-performance, and intelligent data platforms—driving new revenue streams and deeper customer engagement. 2. Modernize Data Infrastructure with Limitless Scale and Performance Azure’s new Elastic Clusters in Azure Database for PostgreSQL enable organizations to scale their databases horizontally across multiple nodes, supporting virtually unlimited throughput and storage. This means you can help clients build and grow multi-tenant SaaS applications and large-scale analytics solutions without the complexity of manual sharding or the limitations of legacy infrastructure. Azure’s managed service automates shard management, tenant isolation, and cross-node query coordination, freeing up your teams to focus on innovation instead of administration. Business Opportunity: Position your practice as the go-to partner for scalable, future-proof data platforms. Offer migration services, architecture consulting, and managed solutions that leverage Azure’s unique scale-out capabilities. 3. Accelerate Innovation with AI-Ready Databases Azure is leading the way in AI integration for open-source databases. With the PostgreSQL extension for Visual Studio Code and native Microsoft Foundry support, developers can build smarter apps and AI agents leveraging advanced AI capabilities directly in the database. Features like natural language querying, vector search, and seamless Copilot integration mean your clients can unlock new insights and automate processes faster than ever. Business Opportunity: Expand your offerings to include AI-powered analytics, intelligent agent development, and custom Copilot solutions. Help organizations harness their data for real-time decision-making and enhanced customer experiences. 4. Simplify and Accelerate Migrations from Legacy Systems The new AI-assisted Oracle to PostgreSQL migration tool dramatically reduces the effort and risk of moving off expensive, proprietary databases. Integrated into the PostgreSQL extension for VS Code, it automates schema and code conversion, provides inline AI explanations, and ensures secure, context-aware migrations. Business Opportunity: Lead migration projects that deliver rapid ROI. Offer assessment, planning, and execution services to help clients escape legacy costs and embrace open-source flexibility on Azure. 5. Enable Seamless Analytics and Real-Time Insights With support for Parquet in the Azure storage extension for PostgreSQL and Fabric zero-ETL mirroring for Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure is bridging operational databases and analytics platforms. Business Opportunity: Build solutions that unify data estates, streamline analytics workflows, and deliver actionable intelligence. Position your team as experts in data integration and real-time analytics. 6. Drive Industry-Specific Transformation Ignite 2025 showcases real-world success stories from industries like healthcare (Apollo Hospitals), automotive (GM), and finance (Nasdaq), demonstrating how Azure’s open-source databases power resilient, scalable, and AI-driven solutions. Business Opportunity: Use these case studies to inspire clients in regulated or complex sectors. Offer tailored solutions that meet strict compliance, security, and performance requirements. Why Partners Win with Azure’s Latest Innovations Faster time-to-value: Help clients adopt the latest tech with minimal downtime and risk. Expanded service portfolio: From migration to AI, analytics to managed services, the new capabilities open doors to new revenue streams. Trusted platform: Azure’s enterprise-grade security, compliance, and high availability mean you can deliver solutions with confidence. Ready to help your customers achieve more? Dive deeper into the Ignite 2025 announcements and start building the next generation of intelligent, scalable, and AI-powered solutions on Microsoft Azure. Learn more here: https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/homePartner Case Study | University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago) is one of the nation’s most prestigious research institutions, serving more than 35,000 students, faculty, and staff. As interest in generative AI surged across campus, the university faced a challenge familiar to many: third-party tools were being used without institutional oversight, creating security, privacy, and governance risks. To address this, the university partnered with Royal Cyber—recognized for secure, enterprise-grade AI platforms for higher education. Working closely with Microsoft and UChicago’s IT Services team, Royal Cyber helped design and deploy PhoenixAI—a secure, scalable generative AI assistant powered entirely by Azure. Advancing progress without slowing momentum Faculty and students wanted access to generative AI. But without a centralized solution, the university risked both fragmented adoption and shadow IT usage. Unapproved tools lacked basic data protection and compliance controls, which put institutional data at risk. Royal Cyber worked with the university to co-develop a framework that met security and governance standards while preserving flexibility for academic exploration. The goal: deliver an institutionally managed AI solution built on trusted Azure infrastructure, deployable before the semester’s start, customizable by department or course, and capable of serving tens of thousands of users without adding operational overhead. PhoenixAI was built entirely on Azure using a modular, container-based architecture designed for performance, observability, and scalability. The system architecture was deployed fully within UChicago’s Azure tenant, ensuring that the university retained ownership of its data, infrastructure, and access policies. PhoenixAI integrates a wide array of Azure technologies to deliver secure, scalable performance, including: Azure OpenAI Service: Powers the generative assistant with GPT-4.1, GPT-5, and GPT-o3 models.Azure AI Foundry: Supports modular agent orchestration and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) using Azure Agents API.Azure Cosmos DB: Stores chat history, logs, and structured and unstructured user session data.Azure App Service and Azure Container Apps: Provide scalable, secure deployment of frontend and backend services.Azure Functions App: Automates event processing and tracks token usage in real time.Azure API Management: Creates secure access gateways for researchers, faculty, and custom agents.Azure Monitor and Log Analytics: Deliver real-time diagnostics, usage metrics, and system insights.Microsoft identity platform: Integrates with UChicago’s single sign-on (SSO) and role-based access controls to ensure secure authentication and fine-grained permissions. Additional Azure tools, including Azure Key Vault and Azure Application Gateway, manage certificate security, traffic routing, and endpoint access. Continue reading here Explore all case studies or submit your own Subscribe to case studies tag to follow all new case study posts. Don't forget to follow this blog to receive email notifications of new stories!Don’t miss Building Agents with Microsoft Foundry and Microsoft Foundry Agent Service!
Our dynamic four-part webinar series, Agentic AI + Copilot Partner Skilling Accelerator, empowers you to harness the Microsoft AI ecosystem to unlock new revenue streams and enhance customer success. Across the four sessions, Microsoft partners can expect to learn how to apply AI tools in no-code, low-code, and pro-code scenarios to build intelligent chat and workflow solutions, extend and customize capabilities, and create advanced, custom AI functionality. Don't miss the final session in the series, Building Agents with Microsoft Foundry and Microsoft Foundry Agent Service, where you'll learn how to design and deploy intelligent agents with Microsoft Foundry and Microsoft Foundry Agent Service, including multi-agent architectures and key protocols such as A2A and MCP. The live virtual event is scheduled for December 15, 2025. Register today to reserve your spot! Be sure to follow this Partner news blog for all partner related announcements by clicking follow above!Partner Case Study | Tiger Analytics
In every industry, preventing equipment downtime and maintaining operational continuity is a top priority. Preventive maintenance—making rounds, doing routine maintenance, and logging data—has long been a manual, tedious process, but with recent advances in AI, predicting and preventing failures and downtime is becoming more manageable than ever before. Tiger Analytics is a solutions integrator and Microsoft partner that implements AI-powered solutions. The organization has all three Solutions Partner designations for Azure, as well as three specializations: AI Platform on Microsoft Azure (formerly AI and Machine Learning on Microsoft Azure), Build AI Apps on Microsoft Azure, and Analytics on Microsoft Azure. They believe in using AI to transform operations for customers across industries. Their commitment to using AI to develop smart solutions empowered them to help a medical device company develop a predictive maintenance solution for their radiation therapy devices. Continue reading here Explore all case studies or submit your own Subscribe to case studies tag to follow all new case study posts. Don't forget to follow this blog to receive email notifications of new stories!Don’t miss out: Copilot Studio advanced customization webinar on December 8
Our dynamic four-part webinar series, Agentic AI + Copilot Partner Skilling Accelerator, empowers you to harness the Microsoft AI ecosystem to unlock new revenue streams and enhance customer success. Across the four sessions, Microsoft partners can expect to learn how to apply AI tools across no-code, low-code, and pro-code scenarios to build intelligent chat and workflow solutions, extend and customize capabilities, and create advanced, custom AI functionality. Don't miss out on the third session in the series, where you'll dive into advanced customization with Copilot Studio to create sophisticated agents. The live virtual event is scheduled for December 8, 2025. Sign up to sharpen your AI skills. Register today to reserve your spot.Partner Blog | Building an AI app and agent factory with Microsoft Foundry
AI is shaping how we live and work. Its potential feels limitless, constrained only by what we can imagine. According to the Microsoft Work Trend Index, 82% of leaders say they’re confident that they’ll use digital labor to expand workforce capacity in the next 12–18 months. AI is emerging as a clear differentiator, fueling creativity, accelerating productivity, and unlocking breakthrough innovation. For organizations delivering AI-powered solutions and services, this is your moment to lead. The demand is shifting from pilot projects to AI transformations at scale, and Microsoft partners who can deliver AI apps and agents at scale will define the future of this dynamic market. According to a survey by IDC, partners with mature Microsoft AI practices outperform others in overall gross margin, 36% vs. 30%. Continue reading hereSecure migration starts with trusted cloud and AI expertise
Modernizing legacy IT environments and moving securely to the cloud are top priorities for customers today. With the cloud migration market projected to reach $1.03 trillion 1 by 2030, representing an approximate 28% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), 2 organizations everywhere seek to strengthen their digital foundations—and they expect migrations to be secure, efficient, and tied to business outcomes. This is where partners make the difference. Your expertise speeds transformation and empowers customers to realize the full value of Microsoft Azure. Why modernizing legacy IT environments is essential Modernization is critical across industries. As software and hardware reach end of support, the risk of disruption rises. Unsupported systems create security gaps and operational challenges because they no longer receive essential updates. Meanwhile, regulatory pressure is mounting. Regulations like the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and mandates in financial services and data management demand secure, up-to-date infrastructure to stay compliant and avoid costly penalties. Modernization isn’t just about reducing risk; it’s about seizing the moment of innovation. Modern platforms support AI, automation, and advanced data capabilities. Customers can move faster, operate more efficiently, and respond rapidly to new opportunities by updating legacy systems. Your expertise positions them competitively at the frontier of AI and intelligent operations. Continue reading here
