Nick Brady summarizes the August 2025 updates to Azure AI Foundry, highlighting the launch of the GPT-5 family, new agent tools like Browser Automation, updated AI/ML models, and significant enhancements to APIs, SDKs, and documentation for Microsoft-centric developers.

What’s New in Azure AI Foundry: August 2025 Release Highlights

Overview

August 2025 features significant updates to Azure AI Foundry:

  • GPT-5 family (including mini, nano, and chat variants) now available, supporting advanced reasoning and multimodal conversations.
  • Sora API adds image-to-video and inpainting with new regional support.
  • Mistral Document AI: serverless OCR model for structured document understanding.
  • FLUX Image Models: Fast, robust multimodal and text-to-image models now deployable from Azure.
  • Browser Automation (Public Preview): Automate real browser tasks via agents, tightly integrated with Microsoft Playwright Testing Workspaces.
  • Model Router: Intelligent dynamic switching among GPT-5 models for cost/performance optimization.
  • Responses API: General Availability for unified, multi-turn, tool-integrated conversations.
  • SDKs: New releases and previews for Python, .NET, Java, and JavaScript/TypeScript extend development flexibility.
  • Documentation: Upgrades include guides on migration, observability, compliance (CMK), and disaster recovery.

GPT-5 Family Now in Foundry

Azure AI Foundry now supports:

  • gpt-5: Advanced, long-context (up to ~272K tokens), next-gen reasoning model; registration required.
  • gpt-5-mini, gpt-5-nano, gpt-5-chat: No registration (mini and nano are optimized for speed and low latency; chat is multimodal, large-context).
  • Available in East US 2 and Sweden Central at launch, with detailed region/model availability matrices.
  • Tool-calling improvements: Freeform execution of Python, SQL, and config scripts from prompts, enabling new integration scenarios.
  • Model Router enables dynamic model selection for pricing and quality balance.

Model Updates: Sora, Mistral Document AI, FLUX, OpenAI gpt-oss, VibeVoice

  • Sora API: Adds image-to-video support (including inpainting) and expands geographic availability.
  • Mistral Document AI: High-fidelity, layout-aware document OCR with structured exports for downstream applications (e.g., RAG workflows).
  • FLUX.1 Kontext [pro]: Robust text-to-image, multi-edit, faster inference at large resolutions; FLUX1.1 [pro] optimized for high-speed, large images.
  • OpenAI gpt-oss: Open-weight models (20B/120B) run on Foundry Local and Windows AI Foundry, designed for local/offline or cloud inference.
  • VibeVoice: Forthcoming open-source, long-form, multi-speaker conversational TTS models (1.5B, Large, and upcoming 0.5B Streaming).

Agents and Automation

  • Browser Automation Tool: In public preview, enables natural language-driven browser workflows—automates navigation, form filling, bookings, and profile updates.
  • Deep Playwright Testing Workspace integration simplifies setup and increases automation resilience.
  • Expanded Agent Service regional availability in Brazil South, Germany West Central, Italy North, South Central US (17 regions total).
  • Sample code provided for integrating with both Python and Java SDKs.

APIs and SDKs

  • Responses API is now GA – supports stateful, multi-turn conversations and integrates with the latest OpenAI models, including GPT-5 series.
  • Updates to Python, .NET, Java, and JavaScript/TypeScript SDKs:
    • Agent orchestration, code/evaluation improvements, new sample workflows.
    • Beta/stable release cadence improves adoption flexibility across different project maturity levels.
  • Tools like File Search, Code Interpreter, and new support for Azure AI Search and Azure Functions in samples.

Platform Features

  • Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) provisioning with Terraform.
  • Advanced observability: distributed tracing/monitoring via OpenTelemetry.
  • RBAC refinements, enforced compliance with customer-managed keys.
  • Comprehensive region/model matrices for planning and compliance.

Documentation & Guidance

Numerous new and updated resources for advanced users and teams:

  • Cost management for fine-tuning jobs.
  • Migrating from legacy hubs to Foundry Projects.
  • Enhanced disaster recovery and managed network setup.
  • Evaluations, simulators, and advanced guides on deploying and securing resources.

Resources & Getting Started

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Author: Nick Brady
For comprehensive release details, reference the official blog post.

This post appeared first on “Microsoft AI Foundry Blog”. Read the entire article here