Microsoft Announces Major Foundry Updates to Boost Enterprise AI Agent Management

Microsoft has announced major updates for Microsoft Foundry. These new capabilities are designed to streamline the creation, deployment, and management of AI agents across enterprise environments by centralizing observability, security, and development workflows.

First off, Microsoft has launched Foundry IQ in public preview, which is a managed knowledge system that lets AI agents access and use enterprise data effectively. It connects agents to a unified knowledge base with multiple sources, including Azure services, SharePoint, Fabric IQ, and even web content. This service also helps to automate retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines for multimodal data.

Microsoft Foundry IQ is built on Azure AI Search, and it supports advanced query planning, iterative search, and synthesis to provide rich contextual grounding. It also offers integration with Microsoft Purview to ensure compliance, security, and governance across the entire process.

Fabric IQ is a semantic intelligence layer built into Microsoft Fabric that enhances the capabilities of AI agents from recognizing data patterns to understanding real-world business operations. It constructs a shared, persistent ontology to represent how an organization functions day-to-day, which extends beyond traditional retrieval-augmented generation approaches.

Foundry Control Plane

Microsoft has also announced the preview of Foundry Control Plane, which is a centralized governance and monitoring system for AI agents. It gives developers full visibility and control over agents across Microsoft and external platforms. This service combines observability, lifecycle management, and policy enforcement in one environment.

Foundry Control Plane leverages Entra Agent ID for identity management, Microsoft Defender for runtime security, and Purview for data protection. This combination enables real-time monitoring, performance evaluation, and cost control. Its key capabilities include fleetwide visibility, behavioral guardrails, identity-based access, and integrations that strengthen security across environments.

Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools catalog

Microsoft has launched a preview of a unified catalog of model context protocol (MCP) tools. It includes logic app connectors for third-party tools (like HubSpot, Salesforce, and SAP), and out-of-the-box capabilities for transcription, translation, voice, and intelligent document processing. Moreover, developers can use a unified dashboard in Microsoft Foundry to find, connect, and manage public or private MCP tools for agents.

Last but not least, the model router in Microsoft Foundry is a dynamic tool that automatically picks the most suitable AI model for each prompt based on factors like complexity, cost, and latency. It simplifies deployment by using a single endpoint, continuously learns from usage patterns, and delivers up to 40% faster responses and 50% lower costs without requiring code changes.

It supports 12 models (including GPT-4.1, GPT-5, Llama variants, and Grok) to ensure high-quality results while reducing operational overhead. It’s also available in preview within Foundry Agent Service.