This course is designed to teach participants how to create, deploy, and manage intelligent AI agents using Azure AI Foundry. Students will learn to integrate advanced AI capabilities through agents into scalable, customizable solutions.
This course is designed for developers, data scientists, and IT professionals who want to build intelligent AI-driven solutions in Azure. It is ideal for individuals with a basic understanding of programming and cloud technologies looking to enhance their skills in creating scalable and interactive AI agents for business or personal projects.
By the end of the course, participants should be able to:
- Build and deploy AI agents using Microsoft Foundry and Visual Studio Code
- Extend agent capabilities with custom tools and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations
- Connect agents to enterprise data using Foundry IQ for RAG-powered, cited responses
- Publish and integrate agents directly into Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Orchestrate advanced multi-agent workflows using the Microsoft Agent Framework and A2A protocols
Module 01: Develop AI agents with Microsoft Foundry and Visual Studio Code
Learn how to build, test, and deploy AI agents using Microsoft Foundry Agent Service through both the Azure portal and Visual Studio Code extension.
Topics
- Understand AI agents and Microsoft Foundry Agent Service
- Explore development approaches
- Build your first agent in Microsoft Foundry
- Set up Visual Studio Code for agent development
- Configure and manage agents in Visual Studio Code
- Extend agent capabilities with tools
- Test, deploy, and integrate agents
- Exercise - Build and deploy an AI agent
Module 02: Integrate custom tools into your agent
Built-in tools are useful, but they may not meet all your needs. In this module, learn how to extend the capabilities of your agent by integrating custom tools for your agent to use.
Topics
- Why use custom tools
- Options for implementing custom tools
- How to integrate custom tools
- Exercise - Build an agent with custom tools
- Module assessment
Module 03: Integrate MCP Tools with Azure AI Agents
Enable dynamic tool access for your Azure AI agents. Learn how to connect MCP-hosted tools and integrate them seamlessly into agent workflows.
Topics
- Understand MCP tool discovery
- Integrate agent tools using an MCP server and client
- Use Azure AI agents with MCP servers
- Exercise - Connect MCP tools to Azure AI Agents
- Module assessment
Module 04: Build knowledge-enhanced AI agents with Foundry IQ
Learn how to connect AI agents with enterprise knowledge using Foundry IQ. You'll explore how Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) solves the knowledge problem for AI agents, discover how Foundry IQ provides a shared knowledge platform that multiple agents can access, improve retrieval quality through data optimization, and configure agent instructions for consistent, cited responses.
Topics
- Understanding RAG for agents
- Explore Foundry IQ
- Configure data sources for knowledge bases
- Configure retrieval with Foundry IQ
- Exercise - Integrate an AI agent with Foundry IQ
Module 05: Integrate your agent with Microsoft 365
Learn how to publish Microsoft Foundry agents to Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot, access workplace data with Work IQ, and test your integrated agents.
Topics
- Understand Foundry agent publishing options
- Publish an agent from Foundry portal to Teams
- Advanced - Use Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit
- Access Microsoft 365 data with Work IQ
- Test and iterate your integrated agent
- Exercise - Publish a Foundry agent to Teams
Module 06: Build agent-driven workflows using Microsoft Foundry
Workflows enable you to orchestrate AI agents and other components to create intelligent applications. Learn how to build and manage workflows using Microsoft Foundry.
Topics
- Understand Workflows
- Identify Workflow Patterns
- Create workflows in Microsoft Foundry
- Add Agents to a Workflow
- Apply Power Fx in Workflows
- Maintain Workflows in Microsoft Foundry
- Use workflows in code
- Exercise - Create an Agent-driven Workflow
- Module Assessment
Module 07: Develop an AI agent with Microsoft Agent Framework
This module provides engineers with the skills to begin building Microsoft Foundry Agent Service agents with Microsoft Agent Framework.
Topics
- Understand Microsoft Agent Framework AI agents
- Create an Azure AI agent with Microsoft Agent Framework
- Add tools to Azure AI agent
- Exercise - Develop an Azure AI agent with the Microsoft Agent Framework SDK
Module 08: Orchestrate a multi-agent solution using the Microsoft Agent Framework
Learn how to use the Microsoft Agent Framework SDK to develop your own AI agents that can collaborate for a multi-agent solution.
Topics
- Understand the Microsoft Agent Framework
- Understand agent orchestration
- Use concurrent orchestration
- Use sequential orchestration
- Use group chat orchestration
- Use handoff orchestration
- Use Magentic orchestration
- Exercise - Develop a multi-agent solution
Module 09: Discover Azure AI Agents with A2A
Learn how to implement the A2A protocol to enable agent discovery, direct communication, and coordinated task execution across remote agents.
Topics
- Define an A2A agent
- Implement an agent executor
- Host an A2A server
- Connect to your A2A agent
- Exercise - Connect to remote Azure AI Agents with the A2A protocol
- Module assessment
