Let’s run through all of the key updates for Azure following the Microsoft Ignite 2025 updates!
The Big Picture: Azure’s AI-First Future
Microsoft’s Azure announcements focused on three main pillars:
- Microsoft Foundry – A unified platform for building, deploying, and governing AI agents at scale.
- Microsoft Fabric IQ – A semantic intelligence layer that transforms raw data into actionable business context.
- Agentic Cloud – Autonomous AI agents embedded in Azure Copilot and across Microsoft 365.
Together, these 3 areas aim to make AI not just an add-on but the backbone of Data & AI workflows. For MSPs, this means new opportunities to deliver AI-driven managed services, improve efficiency, and unlock extra value for customers.
Key Updates
- Azure Copilot with Agentic Mode: Now handles six specialized AI agents for deployment, migration, optimization, observability, resiliency, and troubleshooting for faster, safer infrastructure management.
- Azure HorizonDB (Preview): A PostgreSQL-compatible database optimized for AI workloads and high-performance analytics.
- Cosmos DB Enhancements: Vector search, semantic reranking, and integration with Foundry Agent Service for multi-agent workflows.
- Azure Boost & Cobalt 200 CPUs: Hardware-level acceleration for networking and storage, plus energy-efficient Arm-based CPUs for AI workloads.
- SQL Server 2025 in General Availability, with enhanced AI integration, performance optimizations for hybrid deployments and secure data handling.
- Smart Tier Storage: Automated tiering for Blob and Data Lake Storage without egress costs.
- Native integration of Defender for Cloud with Github for advanced security, enabling you to launch campaigns and open issues to track remediation without needing to switch platforms.
- Github Copilot integration with visual studio code and SQL server managements for better productivity, remaining essential for developer productivity.
Deep Dive: Foundry, Fabric & Agents
1. Microsoft Foundry
Formerly named Azure AI Foundry, offering:
- Foundry IQ, a fully managed system designed to ground AI agents. Connect them to a one knowledge based that runs retrieval over multiple data sources.
- Agent Factory now generally available for simplified agent creation and lifecycle management! Also introducing hosted agents, built-in memory and multi-agent workflows, all in preview. Including M365 and Agent 365 integration.
- New Foundry Control Plane for governance, assigning Entra IDs to agents, enforcing security via Defender and Purview, and providing observability dashboards.
Foundry can enable you to offer AI agent development as a managed service, integrate governance into your customer environments, and reduce risk of “shadow AI.” Helping you become a data intelligence provider, not just an infrastructure provider.
2. Microsoft Fabric
Fabric IQ introduces a semantic intelligence layer that unifies analytical, operational, and time-series data under one ontology.
- Operational Agents in Fabric can monitor data and act autonomously under human supervision.
- With PowerBI integration to accelerate adoption for customers already invested in Microsoft analytics.
Simplify data estate modernization and enable customers to move from fragmented data lakes to a unified platform ready for AI. This means faster insights, better governance, and new AI-driven analytics services.
3. Agents Everywhere – From Copilot to Agent 365
Microsoft introduced Agent 365, a control plane for managing AI agents across your environments:
- Governance: Track every agent, enforce compliance, and prevent rogue bots.
- Identity & Security: Agents now have Entra IDs, lifecycle management, and conditional access.
- Specialized Agents: Sales Development, Workforce Insights, and Learning Agents for Microsoft 365, including Azure Copilot agents for infrastructure automation.
Giving you the chance to offer Agent lifecycle management as a new managed service offering, to include agent onboarding, governance, and optimization as part of the service, ensuring clients deploy AI responsibly.
How Does this Change the Game for You?
Microsoft Ignite 2025 signals the end of siloed AI pilots and the start of enterprise-wide agentic AI adoption. For UK MSPs, this is the moment to:
- Upskill teams on Foundry and Fabric.
- Develop governance frameworks for AI agents.
- Create packaged managed service offerings for Agent 365 onboarding & management, Fabric IQ data modernization and many more.
Unlock new revenue streams within your organisations and differentiate yourself as a Data & AI Intelligence provider. Focus on the foundation of data and security to prepare your customers for the new era of AI, and enable them to access real time insights, improve their operational efficiency and performance. Our customers want faster innovation, better insights and reduced risk, now it easier to give them that.
Benefits & Capabilities
- Scalability: Build and manage thousands of agents without losing control.
- Security: Enterprise-grade identity and compliance for AI workloads.
- Performance: Hardware acceleration and smart tiering reduce costs and latency.
- Flexibility: Access to multiple frontier models and integration with existing Microsoft ecosystems.
What’s Your Next Ask?
- Book in a call with Infinigate Cloud! We are here to help you on this journey.
- Trial Foundry and Fabric internally to build up your knowledge base and take that customer zero approach.
- Develop some packaged solutions to provide your customers with answers to questions they didn’t know they had.
- Engage customers early and position AI as a strategic enabler, not just a technical upgrade.
If you would like to learn more about the Ignite updates or anything Azure and how Infinigate Cloud can help you accelerate your journey, please reach out to Emma Howard, Cloud & AI Platforms lead UK&I at Emma.Howard@Infinigate.Cloud or to our Microsoft team at Microsoft@infinigate.cloud.