Developing AI Agents on Azure

Artificial intelligence is shifting from passive chat interfaces to active, autonomous agents that can plan, reason, and execute complex tasks. Building these systems requires a structured approach to orchestration, memory management, and tool integration. This text-only course guides you through the foundational concepts and practical steps of developing autonomous AI agents on Azure. You will understand how to leverage agent services and frameworks to build solutions that can interact with external APIs, process data, and make intelligent decisions. What you'll learn: Understand core AI agent architectures, decision-making loops, and basic terminology; Configure the Foundry Agent Service and modern agent frameworks on Azure; Apply prompt engineering techniques to guide agent behavior and planning; Integrate external tools, APIs, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) patterns; Design agent memory systems to maintain context across complex interactions; Monitor and debug agent performance using modern observability concepts. You will start with the fundamental definitions of agentic workflows before exploring step-by-step written implementations of single and multi-agent systems. The course moves from basic configurations to real-world integration patterns using clear code examples and conceptual explanations. This course is designed for software developers, cloud enthusiasts, and AI beginners who want to start building autonomous systems. No prior experience with AI agents is required, though a basic understanding of cloud and programming concepts is helpful. Start reading today to begin building your first intelligent agent on Azure.