Microsoft introduced Azure AI Foundry at its Ignite 2024 event
Azure AI Foundry is a platform for designing, customising and managing AI apps and agents
The platform is intended for use by workers beyond AI engineers and developers, including business leaders and IT professionals who can access tools that provide insights into AI's impact on their business
Meanwhile, Amazon Bedrock provides access to foundational models from third-party providers and its own models like Titan
While Azure AI Foundry mainly uses OpenAI's models like GPT, Bedrock offers more flexibility in terms of model customisation for complex workflows
Both Azure AI Foundry and Bedrock operate on a pay-as-you-go pricing model
At Ignite 2024, Microsoft also integrated Azure AI with GitHub and Copilot Studio
The platform provides over 1,800 AI models for experimentation and simplifies AI integration
The Azure AI Foundry SDK provides a simplified coding experience that merges components together to build AI apps
Jessica Hawk, Microsoft's corporate VP of data, AI and digital applications, said the platform was designed to overcome barriers to AI adoption