Leading through disruptive change: What partners need now
On February 25th, Ultimate Partner is hosting its annual Executive Winter Retreat in Boca Raton, Florida. We are excited to welcome Nina Harding, CVP, Americas Global Partner Solutions, as this year’s keynote speaker. Nina will share key customer insights during this period of rapid transformation and highlight the critical role partners play in driving meaningful business outcomes. Over the past several months, one thing has become clear: AI is no longer an abstract conversation. Customers are asking how to run it securely, measure its impact, and scale it across their organizations. At the same time, partners are looking for ways to convert the momentum from the Microsoft AI Tour into real execution. Nina will discuss what executives are prioritizing right now, how Agentic AI is reshaping expectations, and how partners can help customers realize measurable value. She will be joined on stage by a strong lineup of Microsoft leaders—Katharine Kennedy, Jason Rook, Erwin Visser, and Steve Cohen—each bringing a real-world perspective on what it takes to build successful, durable partnerships. These leaders will help partners focus on the drivers of momentum: Translating AI strategy into actionable partner plans Understanding how marketplaces now dominate transactions Leveraging ecosystem orchestration as a competitive advantage Navigating a buyer who thinks, evaluates, and purchases differently This retreat is intentionally designed for execution—not theory, not product announcements, and not high-level dialogue. It is a forum where partners gain clarity on how to build, sell, and deliver with Microsoft in 2026. Learn more about Ultimate Partner here: Events - Ultimate Guide to Partnering®Accelerate your AI innovation with App Advisor
Have a great idea for an AI app or agent but unsure how to take it to market? Microsoft’s newly released App Advisor provides a clear, guided path from concept to commercialization. Whether you’re shaping an early idea, navigating build decisions, or preparing your solution for the Microsoft commercial marketplace, App Advisor helps streamline each step—reducing friction and increasing confidence. This walkthrough highlights how App Advisor connects the dots: From concept to execution with structured guidance From development to best practices with informed build recommendations From finished product to revenue through proven Marketplace readiness insights If you’re looking to build and sell AI solutions faster and more effectively, this resource is well worth your time. Read the full article: Build an AI app or agent faster to sell on Marketplace with App Advisor | Microsoft Community HubBuild an AI app or agent faster to sell on Marketplace with App Advisor
Jump right to the step-by-step curated guidance for building a well-architected app in App Advisor The development of AI apps and agents is moving fast. The data backs it up: The AI platform of choice: 90% of Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft AI, Development lifecycles speed up: Teams see up to 46% faster development with Azure, Companies realize great ROI: AI apps and agents realize an average of 90% ROI. The opportunity is real, but speed alone isn’t enough. To turn momentum into a scalable, sellable solution, software companies need a clear path from idea to architecture to Microsoft Marketplace readiness. How to build an AI app or agent and sell it on Marketplace Microsoft Foundry provides the platform to build AI apps and agents. App Advisor provides the structure, guiding you through the decisions that matter early. So, you can move fast without creating rework later. When paired with focused build and alignment checklists, App Advisor helps you ship faster and prepare your solution for the Marketplace from day one. Here’s how App Advisor, paired with material developed from the popular AI Envisioning sessions, helps you build with speed and Marketplace readiness in mind. App Advisor gives you a clear starting point to build AI apps and agents App Advisor is tailored specifically to remove ambiguity. Instead of guessing where to begin, you’re guided through key build decisions, based on five critical pillars: Security Reliability Cost optimization Operational excellence Performance efficiency These pillars are more than theory. They help you and your team think through pricing models, identity and access, resiliency, scaling, and operational integration early: before code hardens and changes get expensive. By anchoring your build in these principles, you create a foundation that supports both rapid development and future Marketplace requirements. Design well, build fast: Create an Agent MVP in 30 days After your architecture is defined, the next challenge is execution speed. The Create an Agent MVP in 30 Days checklist turns Microsoft Foundry best practices into an actionable build plan. It’s organized around the same well-architected pillars, making it easy to move from design to implementation without losing alignment. This checklist helps you: Embed security controls like encryption, RBAC, and managed identity from day one, Design for reliability with stateless services, health checks, and graceful fallback, Right-size performance and compute so you don’t overbuild the MVP, Control costs early with monitoring, budgets, and automation, Set up DevOps and CI/CD to support fast iteration. The result is a working agent that’s intentionally scoped, production-aware, and easier to evolve into a commercial offering. Built to move fast, ready to be sold at scale Used together, App Advisor, the 30-day to an MVP checklist, and the AI Envisioning sessions give you a repeatable path: Start with architecture clarity, Build an MVP quickly and responsibly, Stay aligned on Marketplace outcomes. You’re not just shipping an AI app or agent. You’re building a solution designed to be deployed, sold, and supported for your target customer. And designing well with solid core principles can help build a solid foundation for your Marketplace success. Ready to build faster with Microsoft Foundry? Explore App Advisor for step-by-step guidance to quickly design well-architected apps. Want to get development templates to start designing in minutes? View the Quick-Start Development Toolkit library for AI apps and agents. See the difference when you build with the proven framework of Microsoft Foundry and selling well-architected apps and agents in Marketplace.Why build your AI apps and agents with Microsoft
Customer demand for AI solutions is accelerating rapidly, Microsoft has seen 2x growth in customers purchasing AI products. Organizations are looking for trusted, enterprise-ready platforms to support their innovation. Microsoft's AI-native ecosystem, backed by industry leading security, Responsible AI principles, and rapidly growing catalog of AI apps and agents, provides a strong foundation for building scalable, compliant, and high-impact AI solutions. Explore how developers and software companies can take advantage of Microsoft's integrated tools, streamlined publishing experience, and expansive Marketplace reach to deliver AI solution that meet customers where they are. Learn more and read the full article: Discover why to build AI apps and agents with Microsoft and sell through Marketplace | Microsoft Community HubAPAC Fabric Engineering Connection Call
The Fabric partner ecosystem is buzzing right now — and 2026 is already raising the bar. 🚀 On this week's Fabric Engineering Connection call, Tamer Farag will share what’s next for partners across skilling, demos, FabCon + SQLCon Atlanta, and more. Highlights include: 🎓 More skilling momentum (DP‑600/DP‑700 vouchers, new Partner Project Ready workshops, and a new “Chat with your Data in a Day” xIAD workshop). 🔦 Fabric Certification Spotlight: partners who reach 100+ Fabric certifications will be recognized live in Arun’s keynote at FabCon + SQLCon. 🤝 New ways to tell your story and win with customers through Fabric Demo eXperiences, Fabric Featured Partners + case studies, and FabCon experiences (Partner Elevator Pitch Search, 1:1 + executive meetings, testimonial videos, the Partner Social Sprint, and more). If you’re a Microsoft partner investing in Fabric, we’d love for you to join our next Fabric Engineering Connection call: 📅 Americas/EMEA – Wednesday, Feb 4, 8–9 AM PT 📅 APAC – Thursday, Feb 5, 1–2 AM UTC (Wednesday, Feb 4, 5–6 PM PT) To join, you must be a member of the Fabric Partner Community in Teams: https://aka.ms/JoinFabricPartnerCommunityAmericas & EMEA Fabric Engineering Connection
The Fabric partner ecosystem is buzzing right now — and 2026 is already raising the bar. 🚀 On this week's Fabric Engineering Connection call, Tamer Farag will share what’s next for partners across skilling, demos, FabCon + SQLCon Atlanta, and more. Highlights include: 🎓 More skilling momentum (DP‑600/DP‑700 vouchers, new Partner Project Ready workshops, and a new “Chat with your Data in a Day” xIAD workshop). 🔦 Fabric Certification Spotlight: partners who reach 100+ Fabric certifications will be recognized live in Arun’s keynote at FabCon + SQLCon. 🤝 New ways to tell your story and win with customers through Fabric Demo eXperiences, Fabric Featured Partners + case studies, and FabCon experiences (Partner Elevator Pitch Search, 1:1 + executive meetings, testimonial videos, the Partner Social Sprint, and more). If you’re a Microsoft partner investing in Fabric, we’d love for you to join our next Fabric Engineering Connection call: 📅 Americas/EMEA – Wednesday, Feb 4, 8–9 AM PT 📅 APAC – Thursday, Feb 5, 1–2 AM UTC (Wednesday, Feb 4, 5–6 PM PT) To join, you must be a member of the Fabric Partner Community in Teams: https://aka.ms/JoinFabricPartnerCommunityDiscover why to build AI apps and agents with Microsoft and sell through Marketplace
Customer demand for AI is accelerating fast. And your company's AI app or agent should be there to meet it. In this fiscal year, Microsoft has already seen 2x growth in customers purchasing AI products through Microsoft Marketplace, while also being the largest catalog of AI apps and agents in the industry. Building AI apps and agents isn’t just about model performance or speed to market. It’s about meeting your customers’ needs when they have them. For software companies, success depends on whether your AI solution is secure, compliant, responsibly designed, and ready to scale in real-world work environments. That’s why App Advisor starts by showing the many reasons why building with Microsoft is the right foundation for AI apps and agents. Why building AI apps and agents with Microsoft is different Microsoft, named an AI Leader by Gartner, brings together AI innovation, Responsible AI, and enterprise-grade security into a single, integrated platform. This matters when you’re quickly building AI-powered experiences and agents that your customers can trust. When you build with Microsoft, you’re building on an AI-native platform designed for production use: Industry-leading AI and agentic capabilities supporting Gen AI, RAG, ML, predictive analytics, and multi-modal agent workflows, Integrated developer tools to help teams ship faster that you already use and trust (like GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Foundry), Seamless integration across the Microsoft stack to make it easier to connect data, services, and user experiences without stitching different systems together. This foundation helps you focus on what you’re building. Microsoft handles the complexity behind the scenes. Build confidently from day one, stay up to date with AI best practices Building with AI doesn't have to be risky. Data access, model behavior, governance, and compliance all matter more when AI and agents are embedded directly into customer workflows. Microsoft approaches this with end-to-end security and Responsible AI practices that are integrated throughout the development lifecycle. That's why App Advisor and Microsoft keep you up with the speed of designing with AI: Principles to design your own AI Center of Excellence, Sessions focused on the future of AI and agents in the AI Tour, Resources and webinars, like the AI envisioning sessions, to keep you current. This is especially critical for software companies selling into regulated or security-conscious industries. Security isn't an afterthought. You’re building on a platform where they’re already part of the system. How App Advisor can help answer questions about building AI apps and agents The first step in App Advisor is intentionally focused on clarity. Instead of jumping straight into tooling or publishing requirements, it helps you evaluate: Why Microsoft is the right platform for AI apps and agents, How building with Microsoft assists in development, scaling, and customer trust, What kinds of opportunities exist in the Microsoft Marketplace and how to maximize on them. However, App Advisor doesn’t stop at discovery or development. The same experience that helps you build AI apps and agents also supports growth through the Microsoft Marketplace—giving you access to global customers, streamlined procurement, and enterprise-ready distribution. From first line of code to go-to-market readiness, the platform is designed to support sustainable, scalable growth with confidence. Ready to build your AI app or agent? When you start with the right foundation, everything that follows moves faster—and with less risk. Start with the fundamentals: realize the potential of building with Microsoft with curated guidance in App Advisor We look forward to seeing your AI app or agent on Microsoft Marketplace!Quarterly AMA with Amir Netz (APAC) – Microsoft Fabric Partners, Don’t Miss Out!
🌟 Microsoft Partners—don’t miss your chance to connect directly with Amir Netz, CTO & Technical Fellow, at our exclusive Quarterly AMA (Ask Me Anything) session! The Fabric Engineering Connection is your gateway to insider insights, direct access to product leaders, and the latest updates on Microsoft Fabric. As a valued partner, you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions, share feedback, and learn about new features and strategies that can help you drive success for your clients and your business. This session is designed to empower partners with actionable knowledge and networking opportunities. 📅 Save the date: Americas & EMEA: Wednesday, January 21, 8–9 am PT APAC: Thursday, January 22, 1–2 am UTC / Americas & EMEA: Wednesday, January 21, 5–6 pm PT 🔗 Not a member yet? Join the Fabric Partner Community to participate: https://aka.ms/JoinFabricPartnerCommunity. Let’s build the future of data together!Quarterly AMA with Amir Netz (Americas & EMEA) – Microsoft Fabric Partners, Don’t Miss Out!
🌟 Microsoft Partners—don’t miss your chance to connect directly with Amir Netz, CTO & Technical Fellow, at our exclusive Quarterly AMA (Ask Me Anything) session! The Fabric Engineering Connection is your gateway to insider insights, direct access to product leaders, and the latest updates on Microsoft Fabric. As a valued partner, you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions, share feedback, and learn about new features and strategies that can help you drive success for your clients and your business. This session is designed to empower partners with actionable knowledge and networking opportunities. 📅 Save the date: Americas & EMEA: Wednesday, January 21, 8–9 am PT APAC: Thursday, January 22, 1–2 am UTC / Americas & EMEA: Wednesday, January 21, 5–6 pm PT 🔗 Not a member yet? Join the Fabric Partner Community to participate: https://aka.ms/JoinFabricPartnerCommunity. Let’s build the future of data together!New Azure blog on charting AI & agent strategy with Marketplace
In a new Azure blog, Cyril Belikoff, Vice President, Commercial Cloud and AI Marketing, talks about how organizations are using Microsoft Marketplace as a central hub for discovering, buying, and deploying AI models, applications, and agents to support their AI strategy. He emphasizes that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach—companies can build custom solutions, buy ready-made ones, or blend both depending on their needs. Marketplace offers thousands of pre-vetted models and AI tools that integrate with existing Microsoft products (like Microsoft Foundry and Copilot), helping teams accelerate time-to-value, maintain governance, and balance agility with oversight as they adopt AI more broadly. Read the full blog and share it with your customers: Design your AI strategy with Microsoft Marketplace Solutions
