AI-3026: Develop AI Agents on Azure

About this Course

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming more functional and accessible, and AI agents are a key component of this evolution. This course will help you understand the AI agents, including when to use them and how to build them, using Azure AI Agent Service and Semantic Kernel Agent Framework.

Audience Profile

This course is designed for developers, data scientists, and IT professionals who want to build intelligent AI-driven solutions in Azure. It is ideal for individuals with a basic understanding of programming and cloud technologies looking to enhance their skills in creating scalable and interactive AI agents for business or personal projects.

At Course Completion

By the end of this course, you will have the skills needed to develop AI agents on Azure.

Outline

Get started with AI agent development on Azure
AI agents represent the next generation of intelligent applications. Learn how they can be developed and used on Microsoft Azure.

Introduction
What are AI agents?
Options for agent development
Azure AI Foundry Agent Service
Exercise – Explore AI Agent development
Module assessment
Summary
Develop an AI agent with Azure AI Foundry Agent Service
This module provides engineers with the skills to begin building agents with Azure AI Foundry Agent Service.

Introduction
What is an AI agent
How to use Azure AI Foundry Agent Service
Develop agents with the Azure AI Foundry Agent Service
Exercise – Build an AI agent
Integrate custom tools into your agent
Built-in tools are useful, but they may not meet all your needs. In this module, learn how to extend the capabilities of your agent by integrating custom tools for your agent to use.

Introduction
Why use custom tools
Options for implementing custom tools
How to integrate custom tools
Exercise – Build an agent with custom tools
Develop a multi-agent solution with Azure AI Foundry Agent Service
Break down complex tasks with intelligent collaboration. Learn how to design multi-agent solutions using connected agents.

Introduction
Understand connected agents
Design a multi-agent solution with connected agents
Exercise – Develop a multi-agent app with Azure AI Foundry
Integrate MCP Tools with Azure AI Agents
Enable dynamic tool access for your Azure AI agents. Learn how to connect MCP-hosted tools and integrate them seamlessly into agent workflows.

Introduction
Understand MCP tool discovery
Integrate agent tools using an MCP server and client
Use Azure AI agents with MCP servers
Exercise – Connect MCP tools to Azure AI Agents
Develop an AI agent with Semantic Kernel
This module provides engineers with the skills to begin building Azure AI Foundry Agent Service agents with Semantic Kernel.

Introduction
Understand Semantic Kernel AI agents
Create an Azure AI agent with Semantic Kernel
Add plugins to Azure AI agent
Exercise – Develop an Azure AI agent with the Semantic Kernel SDK
Orchestrate a multi-agent solution using Semantic Kernel
Learn how to use the Semantic Kernel SDK to develop your own AI agents that can collaborate for a multi-agent solution.

Introduction
Understand the Semantic Kernel Agent Framework
Understand agent orchestration
Use concurrent orchestration
Use sequential orchestration
Use group chat orchestration
Use handoff orchestration
Use Magentic orchestration
Manage orchestration runtime lifecycles
Exercise – Develop a multi-agent solution
Discover Azure AI Agents with A2A
Learn how to implement the A2A protocol to enable agent discovery, direct communication, and coordinated task execution across remote agents.

Introduction
Define an A2A agent
Implement an agent executor
Host an A2A server
Connect to your A2A agent
Exercise – Connect to remote Azure AI Agents with the A2A protocol

Prerequisites

Before starting this module, you should be familiar with fundamental AI concepts and services in Azure.