The Shift to Production-Grade AI

As enterprises move beyond AI pilots and experiments, the focus has shifted to building production-grade AI applications and agents that deliver measurable business outcomes. According to IDC research, 68% of global enterprises are already using generative AI, with another 26% planning adoption within the next 12 months. More importantly, organizations are rapidly transitioning from prebuilt solutions to customized or custom-built AI applications—a shift projected to grow from 40% today to 70% over the next 24 months.

This evolution creates significant opportunities for partners who can help customers operationalize AI while maintaining security, governance, and trust.

Developer-Centric AI Innovation

Developers are at the heart of AI transformation, but they often face fragmented toolchains spanning models, data, agents, infrastructure, and security. Microsoft addresses this challenge by integrating AI capabilities across the entire software development lifecycle through Microsoft Foundry and GitHub.

Key capabilities include:

Microsoft Foundry IQ (currently in preview) enables AI agents to connect seamlessly to the right data sources without unnecessary complexity. Built on Azure AI Search, it streamlines how agents discover, retrieve, and reason over both public and private sources—including SharePoint, Fabric IQ, and the web.

GitHub Copilot brings AI deeper into the development workflow with agent-based capabilities and integrations that reduce friction from ideation through testing and deployment.

For partners, this translates to accelerated development velocity and the ability to build AI-native applications designed to scale from day one.

From Proof of Concept to Production

Operationalizing AI remains one of the most challenging aspects of enterprise adoption. Organizations need solutions that address infrastructure management, observability, cost controls, and governance as AI moves from experimental to mission-critical.

Microsoft Foundry provides production-focused capabilities including:

- Multi-agent orchestration via Semantic Kernel Agent Framework
- Evaluation and tracing tools for tracking agent behavior and learning from real usage
- A/B testing capabilities for continuous quality improvement
- Integration with Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure App Service, and Azure Functions for efficient, reliable AI workload execution

As customers transition from single agents to interconnected systems of agents tied to business processes, consistent deployment patterns and lifecycle management become essential.

Building Trust into AI Solutions

Security, governance, and responsible AI are non-negotiable as AI becomes embedded in critical business applications. Microsoft Foundry expands safety and evaluation capabilities to help teams test and harden agentic systems before deployment:

- AI Red Teaming Agent (public preview) for proactive security assessment
- Agentic evaluations that assess risk and quality metrics
- Microsoft Foundry IQ knowledge bases powered by Azure AI Search, enabling agents to return citation-backed results for improved accuracy and compliance

The Foundry Control Plane (currently in preview) consolidates signals across the Microsoft Cloud—including Agent 365 and the Microsoft Security suite—into a single interface for real-time security, lifecycle management, and visibility across agent platforms.

For partners, this creates a pathway to deliver rapid innovation while building trust and compliance into solutions from day one.

Measurable Business Outcomes

AI's value lies in the outcomes it enables:

- Customer engagement transformation through personalized, conversational experiences
- Business process optimization via knowledge automation and document workflows
- Employee experience enhancement with assistants that surface insights and reduce repetitive work
- Multi-agent systems coordinating work across specialized tasks and long-running processes

Partners play a critical role in translating these capabilities into real deployments by aligning use cases to measurable outcomes and building sustainable operating models.

Partner Opportunity

This represents a category-defining shift where partners can differentiate through four high-value motions:

  1. Model optimization: Selecting and tuning the right models for each workload, balancing performance, cost, and compliance
  2. Agent orchestration: Designing and building agents that reliably execute across business processes
  3. Enterprise data grounding: Leveraging Foundry IQ knowledge bases to deliver citation-backed outputs aligned to access controls
  4. Governance operationalization: Embedding quality, safety, and compliance into the delivery lifecycle
Microsoft Agent Factory removes barriers to AI agent innovation with the Microsoft AI stack. The Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan (P3) offers customers access to Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry services through a single pool of funds, providing licensing flexibility and reducing project risk.

Getting Started

Partners ready to capitalize on this opportunity can access:

- Sales Accelerator: Driving Adoption of AI Apps and Agents (Partner Skilling Hub)
- AI Tour for Partners (in-person learning)
- Sales tools and co-sell resources - Microsoft Agent Factory partner program

TL;DR

- 68% of enterprises already use generative AI; adoption of custom-built solutions will grow from 40% to 70% over 24 months
- Microsoft Foundry and GitHub enable developers to build AI apps and agents with integrated tools spanning the full development lifecycle
- Production capabilities include multi-agent orchestration, evaluation frameworks, and enterprise-grade security via Foundry Control Plane
- Partners can differentiate through model optimization, agent orchestration, enterprise data grounding, and governance operationalization
- Microsoft Agent Factory and the Agent Pre-Purchase Plan (P3) remove barriers and provide licensing flexibility

Sources

Microsoft Partner Blog: Cloud & AI Platforms, Part 5 - Innovating with Azure AI apps and agents