Build Production-Ready AI Agents with the Microsoft Stack: Ground, secure, and evaluate agents with Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and Microsoft Agent Framework

Build AI agents across Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and Agent Framework, from tenant setup and deployment to multimodal assessment, code-first workflows, evidence-based decisions, and production architecture choices

Key Features

• Build grounded, multimodal, and multi-agent solutions across three Microsoft agent tiers
• Evaluate, secure, publish, and monitor agents using production-focused workflows
• Implement durable human-in-the-loop orchestration with checkpoints and auditable decisions

Book Description

Moving an AI agent from a working prototype to a production system requires more than a good prompt. You need the right architecture, reliable grounding, controlled tool use, evaluation, security, observability, and clear points for human intervention. Build Production-Ready AI Agents with the Microsoft Stack shows how these pieces fit together through through Claims 365, a fictional insurer’s claims process.

You will build a grounded business agent with Copilot Studio, secure and evaluate it, and publish it for real use. You will then create a multimodal assessment agent in Microsoft Foundry that processes images and documents and returns structured outputs. From there, you will run, test, and resume a complete code-first multi-agent workflow built with Microsoft Agent Framework, in Python or C#. It coordinates agents and tools to gather and challenge evidence, then pauses for durable human approval using checkpoints, shared state, Dataverse, and an auditable investigation trail.

The book concludes by comparing the three Microsoft agent tiers (Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and Microsoft Agent Framework) and the trade-offs between flexibility, control, maintenance, and operational responsibility, helping you select the right architecture for different production scenarios.

What you will learn

• Choose the right Microsoft agent tier for each workload
• Ground agent responses in Dataverse and business data
• Evaluate grounded responses and identify failure cases
• Secure and publish agents with sign-in and entitlement checks
• Build multimodal agents with structured JSON outputs
• Design code-first multi-agent workflows with shared state
• Add durable human approval with checkpoints and audit trails

Who this book is for

This book is for solution architects, AI engineers, developers, technical consultants, and Microsoft platform professionals who need to take agentic solutions beyond prototypes. It is especially useful for readers working across Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and Microsoft Agent Framework who need to make architecture, security, evaluation, orchestration, and human-oversight decisions. Familiarity with Microsoft cloud services and application development will help readers get the most from the code-first sections.

Table of Contents

1. Choosing the Right Agent Stack and Setting Up Your Environment
2. Building a Grounded Low-Code Agent with Copilot Studio
3. Securing, Evaluating, and Publishing a Customer-Facing Agent
4. Building and Integrating a Multimodal Assessment Agent
5. Building a Durable Code-First Agentic Workflow
6. Reviewing the Claims 365 Architecture