Azure Updates: AI Foundry; Cost Management; Forrester Wave

Azure OpenAI Service Product Lead Steve Sweetman shared updates on two new features for AI Foundry. The Responses API enables AI-powered apps to process data and take actions, whereas the Computer-Using Agent (CUA) helps navigate software interfaces or automate tasks and workflows. 

According to Sweetman, CUA is unique for its autonomous UI navigation, cross-application task execution, and natural language command interface. 

“As AI agents evolve, Microsoft is committed to transparency, security, and ongoing risk mitigation. By combining CUA’s built-in safeguards with Azure’s enterprise compliance and governance tools, organizations can deploy AI-powered automation with confidence, ensuring safe and responsible AI adoption at scale,” he wrote.

Principle product manager Sameer Doultani profiled the latest Cost Management updates. Running apps on Azure Kubernetes Service clusters can reduce the costs of resource utilization and enable autoscaling. A new Cost analysis view permits granular visibility for AKS clusters, along with tools to minimize idle costs, autoscale to minimize waste, and conduct node auto provisioning. Doultani recommended that customers using Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus to monitor utilization metrics.