Exploring Azure AI Agent Service: A developer's guide
The world of AI is evolving rapidly, and at a recent TechConnect at the Azure AI Foundry Partner Council, we explored the game-changing potential of Azure AI Agent Service. This session was packed with insights for AI developers, cloud solution architects, and technical decision-makers eager to push the boundaries of agentic AI. If you're looking to simplify development, deployment, and scaling of enterprise-grade AI agents, this service is a must-know. In this blog post, we’ll summarize key topics covered during the session and provide insights into how Azure AI Agent Service can streamline your AI development process. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting, this is an exciting opportunity to learn how AI agents can autonomously execute business processes with minimal human intervention. Introduction to AI Agents The session kicked off by defining AI agents and their capabilities. Unlike traditional chatbots, AI agents are goal-driven and can autonomously execute business processes. They can reason over provided business logic, integrate with external data sources, and orchestrate actions to achieve specific goals. This marks a significant shift from simple conversational AI to intelligent, task-driven agents capable of decision-making and execution. Simplifying Development with Azure AI Agent Service Building AI agents traditionally involve working with frameworks like LangChain and Semantic Kernel and AutoGen which require developers to manage state, context, orchestration, and scaling. Azure AI Agent Service eliminates these complexities by offering a fully managed service with: Out-of-the-box tools for faster development Flexible model selection to fit diverse use cases Enterprise readiness with built-in security and scalability This means developers can focus on business logic rather than infrastructure concerns, accelerating the development cycle significantly. Function Calling and Code Interpreter Tools One of the standouts features of Azure AI Agent Service is function calling, which allows agents to interact with external systems by executing predefined functions. The session showcased how developers can: Define and use function calling to connect AI agents to other systems Utilize the code interpreter tool to enable AI agents to generate data visualizations and perform analysis These tools empower developers to create more dynamic and responsive AI agents that can process and present insights effectively. Extending Agent Knowledge with File Search AI agents are only as good as the information they can access. Azure AI Agent Service includes a file search tool that allows agents to tap into external data sources such as product catalogs, knowledge bases, or proprietary documents. This significantly enhances an agent’s ability to answer complex queries and perform in-depth analysis. Real-Time Information with Bing Search For scenarios that require real-time, up-to-date data, the Bing Search tool is a game-changer. The session demonstrated how this tool enables agents to fetch and analyze current web data for use cases like competitive analysis, market research, and trend monitoring. With seamless Bing Search integration, AI agents can stay relevant and informed in an ever-changing world. The training session wasn’t just about concepts, it was packed with practical demonstrations, live coding examples, and troubleshooting tips. You can watch the full session to help you: Understand the core capabilities of Azure AI Agent Service See live implementation of function calling, file search, and Bing Search tools Learn best practices for deploying scalable and secure AI agents Ready to Explore Further? Don’t miss out on the chance to deep-dive into agentic AI to enhance your AI development skills and streamline agent deployment. Check out the recording of the session to take your AI projects to the next level and unlock the full potential of Azure AI Agent Service! About the Azure AI Foundry Partner Council: The Azure AI Foundry Partner Council is a dynamic and collaborative initiative designed to foster innovation and drive advancements in artificial intelligence. This council brings together a diverse group of industry leaders, technology experts, and strategic partners who are committed to leveraging the power of Azure AI to solve complex business challenges. Through the Azure AI Foundry Partner Council, members are empowered to push the boundaries of what is possible with AI, ultimately driving progress and delivering value to their organizations and customers. Call to Action Learn more about how Azure AI Agent Service: Revolutionizing AI Agent Development and Deployment Start trying Azure AI Agent services in Azure AI Foundry or Start building with the SDK documentation Dive deep into enterprise knowledge extensibility in Azure AI Agent Service Learn how to design, customize and manage AI applications with Azure AI Foundry Learn how to empower data-driven decision making with Microsoft Fabric Watch this recorded breakout session from Ignite 2024 to learn more about how companies are automating key business processes with Azure AI Agent Service Watch this live demo at Ignite 2024 to learn how customers are going beyond chat-based interactions Nominate to join the Azure AI Foundry Council via aipartnerteam@microsoft.comChallenges Business Users Face with Microsoft's Transactable Offers in the Marketplace
Here’s a summary of the challenges faced by business users when purchasing solutions through Microsoft's transactable offer setup in the marketplace: Limited Pricing Flexibility: Business users may find it challenging to secure multi-year or customized pricing as AppSource primarily supports monthly or annual subscription plans. This limits their ability to negotiate bulk discounts or tailored pricing, common in traditional procurement. Complex Procurement Processes: The setup of transactable offers on Azure Marketplace often requires coordination with IT departments for deployment, making it cumbersome for non-technical business users to manage purchases independently. The process may feel less intuitive compared to traditional software procurement methods. Integration Issues with Existing Systems: Many businesses have third-party procurement platforms or internal systems for billing and spend management. The reliance on Microsoft’s native billing system may not align with these existing tools, leading to difficulty in reconciling purchases, tracking invoices, and managing budgets efficiently. Lack of Contract Negotiation: Business users often rely on personalized contract negotiations for larger purchases. Microsoft’s marketplace setup offers standardized pricing without room for customized contracts, making it hard for customers to negotiate terms, volume discounts, or extended payment plans. Limited Cross-Platform Compatibility: Since Microsoft’s marketplace is primarily focused on the Microsoft ecosystem, it may not be the best fit for organizations that operate in multi-cloud environments or use non-Microsoft tools. This limits the flexibility for businesses looking for cross-platform solutions. Lack of Detailed Usage Reports for Business: Business users may find it difficult to get granular visibility into usage and costs, which can make it harder to track software ROI or align expenditures with department budgets. While basic reporting is available, it may not provide the level of detail needed for large organizations. Summary: The way Microsoft’s transactable offer setup is structured presents challenges for business users, including limited pricing flexibility, complex procurement coordination, and difficulty integrating with existing systems. These issues can create friction for organizations seeking more customized contracts, clearer usage visibility, and better alignment with multi-cloud environments.Multitenant and Marketplace publishing, issue with Solution Designation
We have our solution published on Microsoft Marketplace using Partner Center. This is first / main Partner center MPN Location and Microsoft tenant in Europe. Now publishing requires having Solution Designation. We need to publish this solution on another MPN Location / Microsoft tenant in US. On the second / child tenant, we did not reach the Solution Designation, so it is not active. Therefore, we are unable to publish solution on Microsoft Marketplace due to missing Solution designation. Should Solution Designation status be automatically inherited from partner (main) to child tenant / locations? How can we grow revenue etc to reach solution designation, if we cannot publish (already successful) solution on Marketplace.
Scale smarter: How ISVs can grow with Azure and a multicloud strategy
Expanding an application's reach and revenue potential is essential for long-term growth in a competitive market. As businesses increasingly adopt multicloud strategies, independent software vendors (ISVs) can enhance scalability and market presence by replicating their applications to Microsoft Azure. With enterprise-grade infrastructure, seamless interoperability, and access to a global customer base through the Microsoft commercial marketplace, Azure provides a strategic platform for ISVs looking to strengthen their multicloud approach. This article explores the advantages of Azure in supporting ISVs’ expansion efforts and ensuring long-term business resilience. Replicate your apps to Azure: A multicloud advantage for ISVsMastering Co-Sell with Microsoft: A Two-Part Webinar Series to Accelerate Growth
Co-selling with Microsoft presents a significant opportunity for ISVs to expand their market reach, accelerate revenue growth, and build stronger partnerships. In this two-part webinar series, experts from Rubrik and Tackle will provide actionable insights on developing, operationalizing, and scaling a successful co-sell strategy to maximize your impact within the Microsoft ecosystem. Learn more about the two-part series, and how to register. Unlocking the power of co-sell: what to expect in the upcoming webinar series with Rubrik and TackleUnlocking the power of co-sell: what to expect in the upcoming webinar series with Rubrik and Tackle
For ISVs, partnering with cloud providers is a powerful growth engine, opening doors to new customers, expanding market reach, and driving revenue. Co-selling is a key lever in this partnership, enabling ISVs to align with cloud providers like Microsoft to accelerate growth, strengthen relationships, and close larger deals. However, developing a successful co-sell practice doesn’t just happen overnight—it requires strategic alignment, scalable resources, and a deep understanding of partner incentives. To help you navigate this journey, Rubrik and Tackle are teaming up for a two-part webinar series designed to help you build, operationalize, and scale a strong co-sell strategy with Microsoft. In these sessions, you’ll learn how to: Develop a scalable co-sell strategy aligned with Microsoft’s goals Streamline your co-sell motion with workflows, CRM alignment, and deal-sharing strategies Strengthen relationships with Microsoft sellers and aligning with Azure’s consumption goals Led by Rubrik Head of Global Cloud Alliances Jasmine Kronk and Tackle’s co-sell experts, this webinar series will equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to co-sell with confidence. Here’s a preview of what you’ll learn in each session: Session 1: Building a Winning Strategy to Accelerate Growth with Microsoft Date: February 24, 2025 at 9:30 am PST To successfully co-sell with Microsoft, ISVs need a clear strategy that aligns with Microsoft’s priorities, streamlines collaboration, and maximizes growth opportunities. In this session, experts will share key insights on how to operationalize co-sell, build strategic relationships, and leverage marketplace to accelerate revenue. Here are the top takeaways from this session to help you build a winning a winning co-sell strategy: Use Co-Sell as a strategic GTM motion. Co-selling with Microsoft is not just a checkbox activity; it's a fundamental go-to-market (GTM) strategy that can drive growth, increase deal sizes, and accelerate sales cycles. ISV should leverage co-sell partnerships to shorten sales cycles and close larger deals. Understand the value proposition. To succeed in the Microsoft ecosystem, ISVs must clearly define their unique value proposition. Aligning your solution with Microsoft’s priorities, like driving Azure consumption, creates mutual benefits and strengthens co-sell opportunities. Operationalize co-sell for scale. Streamlining internal processes is key to scaling co-sell efforts. This includes integrating CRM systems, defining deal-sharing criteria, and maintaining a structured approach to pipeline management. Regularly sharing deal updates, tracking performance metrics, and ensuring cross-team alignment helps optimize efficiency and collaboration. Measuring key indicators, such as deals won and revenue impact, ensures ongoing success. Build relationships with Microsoft stakeholders. Establishing a network of advocates within Microsoft is critical for driving future co-sell opportunities. By building trust and understanding, you can create an environment where Microsoft reps actively refer and promote your solutions to customers, ultimately generating more leads and sales. Leverage marketplace as a growth engine – Combining co-sell efforts with marketplace sales streamlines procurement for customers, improves accessibility, and accelerates revenue generation. Session 2: How to Operationalize and Scale Your Co-Sell Motion with Microsoft Date: February 26, 2025 at 9:30 am PST To scale their co-sell motion, ISVs need a structured approach that integrates co-selling into their overall GTM strategy, fosters alignment with Microsoft stakeholders, and prioritizes high-impact opportunities. In our second session, we share key strategies for operationalizing co-sell, from creating scalable resources to building cross-functional support. Here are the top takeaways to help you drive repeatable success and accelerate growth: Co-sell as a strategic element: Co-selling should be treated as a fundamental part of your go-to-market strategy, not just a one-off tactic. It’s about embedding co-sell into your broader sales approach to drive sustained growth. A strategic co-sell motion can accelerate sales cycles, increase deal sizes, and create longer-term partnerships. By making co-sell a core component of your GTM plan, you ensure it aligns with your broader business objectives and supports scalable growth over time. Align product-market fit: For co-sell success, your product must seamlessly integrate within your partner’s ecosystem and address critical customer pain points. It’s not just about having a solution that works technically, but one that directly ties into your partner's goals and creates clear value for the customer. This ensures both parties can demonstrate the solution’s unique value, which not only drives immediate sales but fosters repeatable success and strengthens your co-sell partnership. Understand mutual incentives: Co-selling is most effective when both parties benefit. To maximize this, you need to understand your partner’s motivations—whether that’s driving Azure consumption, hitting specific adoption targets, or achieving quota goals. By aligning your co-sell strategy with these priorities, you create a win-win dynamic that fosters stronger collaboration and accelerates the deal process. Recognizing and addressing your partner’s evolving incentives ensures that both sides remain motivated to drive deals forward. Create scalable co-sell resources: To sustain and scale co-selling efforts, it’s critical to build reusable resources and processes. This includes developing playbooks, one-pagers, email templates, and other assets that can be quickly deployed across teams and regions. With these resources, sales teams spend less time creating new materials and more time engaging meaningfully with partners. Scalable resources streamline operations, maintain consistency, and support seamless collaboration, which ultimately drives more efficient and impactful co-selling motions. Prioritize high-value accounts: Rather than spreading your co-sell efforts across a broad spectrum of clients, it’s more effective to focus on high-value accounts. Start by identifying where your ideal customer profiles overlap with your partner’s customer base, and build upon these existing synergies. This focused approach allows you to dedicate time and resources to deals with the highest potential for revenue growth. It reduces wasted effort on low-impact accounts and increases your chances of closing more significant, higher-value deals with your partner. Join us to master co-selling Whether you’re just getting started with co-sell or you’re looking to optimize existing efforts, these sessions will provide actionable insights you can immediately apply to your strategy. Register now to secure your spot and take your co-sell strategy to the next level!How we increased trials 200% with Marketplace Rewards
Hi All, Kitameraki Limited's TeamsWork brand provides intuitive and collaborative apps for Microsoft Teams that cater to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses and has successfully launched Ticketing As A Service and Checklist As A Service apps, and just recently CRM As A Service App on the Microsoft Marketplaces. As a Microsoft partner for nearly four years, TeamsWork recognized the importance of maximizing visibility and reach within the Microsoft ecosystem. Our team has been able to leverage many of the benefits available through Marketplace Rewards to help drive significant growth and quantifiable results, thanks to expert guidance and the broad range of resources available to better market apps on Microsoft marketplaces. Just a few of these benefits included: The listing optimization allowed us to receive expert recommendations from Microsoft about how to optimize our marketplace offer pages. Azure sponsorship credits cut down on our costs of marketplace solutions. Press release support featuring a quote from a Microsoft executive helped amplify the announcement of our marketplace availability Our customer success story demonstrated how one of our customers increased administrative efficiency by 20 percent using our marketplace solution. featured category placement on the Azure Marketplace, which spotlighted TeamsWork and drove more users to view offer pages. Marketplace Rewards has helped drive a 200% increase in new trials for our marketplace offerings! Read the full story here: Kitameraki case study What success has your organization seen with Marketplace Rewards?Co-sell with Confidence: February 24th at 9:30 am PST
Ready to unlock the full potential of your partnership with Microsoft? Join us on February 24th at 9:30 am PST for the first half of the two-part webinar series, “Co-Sell with Confidence,” for a deep dive into the strategies and best practices to build a successful co-sell motion with Microsoft. In this session, you’ll learn: *What co-sell is and why it’s essential for driving growth *How to build a scalable co-sell strategy *Practical steps to operationalize co-sell workflows *Co-sell success stories from Rubrik, a multiple-time Microsoft Partner of the Year Featuring insights from Jasmine Kronk, Head of Global Cloud Alliances at Rubrik; Patrick Riley, Cloud GTM Principal at Tackle; and Luca Gianaschi, Director of Cloud Alliances and Ecosystem Partnerships at Tackle, this webinar is a must-attend for ISVs looking to optimize their cloud partnerships and scale their business. Whether you’re just starting your co-sell journey or looking to refine your strategy, this session will equip you with the tools and knowledge to co-sell with confidence. Register here:.Teams App - Copilot vs Azure Open AI
Morning, For our gauge.it Teams app we have implemented AI to allow the feedback generated by employees to be summarised into suggestions for the manager. When we look at the Team's store I would like it to appear in the AI-powered apps - what is the best process for doing this if we are using Azure Open AI, do we need to add anything to the manifest when pushing the update? Thanks Alasdair
