Microsoft Foundry is a unified Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that brings together models, tools, data, agents, and governance under a single Azure resource provider (Microsoft.CognitiveServices).
| Layer | Purpose | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Models | AI model catalog and deployment | GPT-4o, Llama 3, Mistral, Phi, Cohere |
| Tools | Pre-built AI capabilities (formerly Cognitive Services) | Vision, Speech, Document Intelligence, Translator |
| Data & Grounding | Connect models to your data | Azure AI Search indexes, file uploads, databases |
| Agents | Build and manage autonomous AI agents | Agent Service, Connected Agents, Multi-Agent Workflows |
| Evaluation | Measure quality, safety, and groundedness | Built-in evaluators, adversarial simulation |
| Governance | Security, compliance, and monitoring | RBAC, content filters, tracing, Azure Policy |
Azure Subscription
└── Resource Group
└── Foundry Resource (Hub)
├── Project A (team workspace)
│ ├── Model Deployments
│ ├── Agents
│ ├── Search Indexes
│ └── Evaluations
└── Project B (another team)
└── ...