Join Us for a Technical Deep Dive and Q&A on Foundry Local - LLMs on device
Join us for an Ask Me Anything with the Foundry Local team on September 29th, 2025! Discover how Foundry Local is redefining edge AI with powerful features like on-device inference, enabling you to run models directly on your hardware, cutting costs and keeping your data secure. Whether you're customizing models to fit unique use cases or integrating seamlessly via SDKs, APIs, or CLI, Foundry Local offers scalable pathways to Azure AI Foundry as your needs evolve. It's the perfect solution for environments with limited connectivity, sensitive data requirements, low-latency demands, or early-stage experimentation before cloud deployment. If you're building smarter, leaner, and more private AI workflows, this AMA is your chance to dive deep with the team behind it all. What is Foundry Local? Foundry Local is a set of development tools designed to help you build and evaluate LLM applications on your local machine. It provides a curated collection of production-quality tools, including evaluation and prompt engineering capabilities, that are fully compatible with Azure AI. This allows for a seamless transition of your work from your local environment to the cloud. Don't miss this opportunity to connect with our experts and enhance your understanding of local LLM development. Foundry Local is an on-device AI inference solution offering performance, privacy, customization, and cost advantages. It integrates seamlessly into your existing workflows and applications through an intuitive CLI, SDK, and REST API. Key features On-Device Inference: Run models locally on your own hardware, reducing your costs while keeping all your data on your device. Model Customization: Select from preset models or use your own to meet specific requirements and use cases. Cost Efficiency: Eliminate recurring cloud service costs by using your existing hardware, making AI more accessible. Seamless Integration: Connect with your applications through an SDK, API endpoints, or the CLI, with easy scaling to Azure AI Foundry as your needs grow. How to Join: Register to Join the Azure AI Foundry Discord Community Event 29th Sept 2025 9am Pacific Time UTC−08:00 Unlock Accelerated Local LLM Development Discover how Foundry Local can enhance your development process and explore the possibilities for building robust LLM applications. Whether you're a seasoned AI developer or just getting started, this session is your chance to get hands-on insights into the innovative world of Azure AI Foundry. Event Highlights: An in-depth overview of the Foundry Local CLI and SDK. Interactive demo with step-by-step examples. Best practices for local AI Inference and models Transitioning your local development to cloud solutions or vice-versa Why Attend? Gain expert insights into Foundry Local, and ask questions about using Foundry Local Network with fellow AI professionals and developers. Enhance your AI development skills with practical examples. Stay at the forefront of LLM application development. Speakers Product Manager Foundry Local Maanav Dalal Product Manager |Foundry Local Microsoft Maanav Dalal is a PM on the AI Frameworks team. He's super inquisitive about the ways you use AI in daily life, so be encouraged to strike up a conversation with him about that. LinkedIn ProfileModel Mondays S2E13: Open Source Models (Hugging Face)
1. Weekly Highlights 1. Weekly Highlights Here are the key updates we covered in the Season 2 finale: O1 Mini Reinforcement Fine-Tuning (GA): Fine-tune models with as few as ~100 samples using built-in Python code graders. Azure Live Interpreter API (Preview): Real-time speech-to-speech translation supporting 76 input languages and 143 locales with near human-level latency. Agent Factory – Part 5: Connecting agents using open standards like MCP (Model Context Protocol) and A2A (Agent-to-Agent protocol). Ask Ralph by Ralph Lauren: A retail example of agentic AI for conversational styling assistance, built on Azure OpenAI and Foundry’s agentic toolset. VS Code August Release: Brings auto-model selection, stronger safety guards for sensitive edits, and improved agent workflows through new agents.md support. 2. Spotlight – Open Source Models in Azure AI Foundry Guest: Jeff Boudier, VP of Product at Hugging Face Jeff showcased the deep integration between the Hugging Face community and Azure AI Foundry, where developers can access over 10 000 open-source models across multiple modalities—LLMs, speech recognition, computer vision, and even specialized domains like protein modeling and robotics. Demo Highlights Discover models through Azure AI Foundry’s task-based catalog filters. Deploy directly from Hugging Face Hub to Azure with one-click deployment. Explore Use Cases such as multilingual speech recognition and vision-language-action models for robotics. Jeff also highlighted notable models, including: SmoLM3 – a 3 B-parameter model with hybrid reasoning capabilities Qwen 3 Coder – a mixture-of-experts model optimized for coding tasks Parakeet ASR – multilingual speech recognition Microsoft Research protein-modeling collection MAGMA – a vision-language-action model for robotics Integration extends beyond deployment to programmatic access through the Azure CLI and Python SDKs, plus local development via new VS Code extensions. 3. Customer Story – DraftWise (BUILD 2025 Segment) The finale featured a customer spotlight on DraftWise, where CEO James Ding shared how the company accelerates contract drafting with Azure AI Foundry. Problem Legal contract drafting is time-consuming and error-prone. Solution DraftWise uses Azure AI Foundry to fine-tune Hugging Face language models on legal data, generating contract drafts and redline suggestions. Impact Faster drafting cycles and higher consistency Easy model management and deployment with Foundry’s secure workflows Transparent evaluation for legal compliance 4. Community Story – Hugging Face & Microsoft The episode also celebrated the ongoing collaboration between Hugging Face and Microsoft and the impact of open-source AI on the global developer ecosystem. Community Benefits Access to State-of-the-Art Models without licensing barriers Transparent Performance through public leaderboards and benchmarks Rapid Innovation as improvements and bug fixes spread quickly Education & Empowerment via tutorials, docs, and active forums Responsible AI Practices encouraged through community oversight 5. Key Takeaways Open Source AI Is Here to Stay Azure AI Foundry and Hugging Face make deploying, fine-tuning, and benchmarking open models easier than ever. Community Drives Innovation: Collaboration accelerates progress, improves transparency, and makes AI accessible to everyone. Responsible AI and Transparency: Open-source models come with clear documentation, licensing, and community-driven best practices. Easy Deployment & Customization: Azure AI Foundry lets you deploy, automate, and customize open models from a single, unified platform. Learn, Build, Share: The open-model ecosystem is a great place for students, developers, and researchers to learn, build, and share their work. Sharda's Tips: How I Wrote This Blog For this final recap, I focused on capturing the energy of the open source AI movement and the practical impact of Hugging Face and Azure AI Foundry collaboration. I watched the livestream, took notes on the demos and interviews, and linked directly to official resources for models, docs, and community sites. Here’s my Copilot prompt for this episode: "Generate a technical blog post for Model Mondays S2E13 based on the transcript and episode details. Focus on open source models, Hugging Face, Azure AI Foundry, and community workflows. Include practical links and actionable insights for developers and students! Learn & Connect Explore Open Models in Azure AI Foundry Hugging Face Leaderboard Responsible AI in Azure Machine Learning Llama-3 by Meta Hugging Face Community Azure AI Documentation About Model Mondays Model Mondays is your weekly Azure AI learning series: 5-Minute Highlights: Latest AI news and product updates 15-Minute Spotlight: Demos and deep dives with product teams 30-Minute AMA Fridays: Ask anything in Discord or the forum Start building: Watch Past Replays Register For AMA Recap Past AMAs Join The Community Don’t build alone! The Azure AI Developer Community is here for real-time chats, events, and support: Join the Discord Explore the Forum About Me I'm Sharda, a Gold Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador focused on cloud and AI. Find me on GitHub, Dev.to, Tech Community, and LinkedIn. In this blog series, I share takeaways from each week’s Model Mondays livestream.Week 2 . Microsoft Agents Hack Online Events and Readiness Resources
https://aka.ms/agentshack 2025 is the year of AI agents! But what exactly is an agent, and how can you build one? Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting out, this FREE three-week virtual hackathon is your chance to dive deep into AI agent development. Register Now: https://aka.ms/agentshack 🔥 Learn from expert-led sessions streamed live on YouTube, covering top frameworks like Semantic Kernel, Autogen, the new Azure AI Agents SDK and the Microsoft 365 Agents SDK. Week 2 Events: April 14th-18th Day/Time Topic Track 4/14 08:00 AM PT Building custom engine agents with Azure AI Foundry and Visual Studio Code Copilots 4/15 07:00 AM PT Your first AI Agent in JS with Azure AI Agent Service JS 4/15 09:00 AM PT Building Agentic Applications with AutoGen v0.4 Python 4/15 12:00 PM PT AI Agents + .NET Aspire C# 4/15 03:00 PM PT Prototyping AI Agents with GitHub Models Python 4/16 04:00 AM PT Multi-agent AI apps with Semantic Kernel and Azure Cosmos DB C# 4/16 06:00 AM PT Building declarative agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio & Teams Toolkit Copilots 4/16 07:00 AM PT Prompting is the New Scripting: Meet GenAIScript JS 4/16 09:00 AM PT Building agents with an army of models from the Azure AI model catalog Python 4/16 12:00 PM PT Multi-Agent API with LangGraph and Azure Cosmos DB Python 4/16 03:00 PM PT Mastering Agentic RAG Python 4/17 06:00 AM PT Build your own agent with OpenAI, .NET, and Copilot Studio C# 4/17 09:00 AM PT Building smarter Python AI agents with code interpreters Python 4/17 12:00 PM PT Building Java AI Agents using LangChain4j and Dynamic Sessions Java 4/17 03:00 PM PT Agentic Voice Mode Unplugged PythonGetting Started - Generative AI with Phi-3-mini: A Guide to Inference and Deployment
Getting started with Microsoft Phi-3-mini - Inference Phi-3-mini models, Discover how Phi-3-mini, a new series of models from Microsoft, enables deployment of Large Language Models (LLMs) on edge devices and IoT devices. Learn how to use Semantic Kernel, Ollama/LlamaEdge, and ONNX Runtime to access and infer phi3-mini models, and explore the possibilities of generative AI in various application scenariosUnderstanding the Difference in Using Different Large Language Models: Step-by-Step Guide
Unlock the secrets of deploying Large Language Models on Azure with our comprehensive guide! Learn step-by-step integration techniques for models like GPT-2, Llama 2, and Dolly v1 in your Web Applications or Power Apps. Explore detailed instructions, ready-made code, and expert tips. Join us for a live session on November 2nd, 2023, to harness the power of AI and Microsoft tools. Become an entrepreneur with Microsoft Founders Hub, offering up to $2,500 OpenAI credits and $1,000 Azure credits. Dive into the world of tech solutions and creative writing ideas today!
