tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:/nitya tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1495045 2026-01-22T18:12:38-05:00 2026-01-22T18:14:52-05:00 Customize AI models and optimize performance for agentic AI scenarios with targeted fine-tuning in Microsoft Foundry. Learn to adapt agent tone with SFT, reduce cost & latency with Distillation, and enhance developer experience with synthetic data generation, custom evaluation, and developer tier. Delivered at AI Tour NYC 2026 https://aitour.microsoft.com/flow/microsoft/nyc26/sessioncatalog/page/sessioncatalog/session/1760572081812001YGbG Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1481433 2025-12-18T07:34:41-05:00 2025-12-18T07:42:46-05:00 Keynote Delivered at AI Summit NYC Dec 10-11 2025 https://newyork.theaisummit.com/ Abstract: We are seeing a paradigm shift in how AI solutions are being developed - from monolithic AI apps to multi-model, multi-agent architectures that require new end-to-end development workflows and unified platform capabilities to accelerate the path from planning to production. From smart models that automate your model selection to optimize for cost and quality - to agent factories that automate your operations and scale your delivery, with Microsoft Foundry you get a Simple, Trusted, and Powerful platform for your needs, Keynote slides derived from Microsoft Ignite talk on Microsoft Foundry See https://ignite.microsoft.com/ Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1481401 2025-12-18T06:55:09-05:00 2025-12-18T16:59:14-05:00 AI Agents are transforming software development and boosting developer productivity. Today, we achieve this interactively using tools like GitHub Copilot via the IDE (VS Code Agent Mode) or Terminal (Copilot CLI). But what it they could work on your behalf continuously in the background without you having to ask? ​In this talk, we’ll look at work being done by our colleagues at GitHub Next and Microsoft Research on a concept called Continuous AI that is powered by AI Agentic Workflows. We’ll look at what kinds of tasks this is good for, show examples of these workflows in action, and give you an intuitive sense for how you can apply these tools and concepts to your own projects. The work is not a product - but rather, an experimental platform for learning and exploring the possibilities of agentic AI in automating and managing repository actions. Learn more about the project here. Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1469335 2025-11-21T21:35:50-05:00 2025-11-21T21:37:47-05:00 This hands-on workshop will provide participants with the skills to effectively manage, govern, and scale agentic AI applications using Azure and Azure AI Foundry. The session will cover observability capabilities, model management policies, agent functionalities, and governance strategies. Participants will engage in practical exercises to apply these concepts in real-world scenarios. Level: 300-400 Duration: 4 hours Visit the Repo: https://github.com/microsoft/ignite25-PREL13-observe-manage-and-scale-agentic-ai-apps-with-microsoft-foundry Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1469094 2025-11-21T06:12:12-05:00 2025-11-21T06:19:35-05:00 This hands-on workshop will introduce participants to the fundamentals of automated AI red teaming generative AI systems for safety and security risks using Microsoft Foundry. Attendees will learn how to apply automated attack techniques to identify safety issues and security vulnerabilities across multiple risk dimensions before deployment. Participants will engage in hands-on walkthroughs and guided exercises to apply these concepts in realistic development scenarios. Register for the Session at Microsoft Ignite https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/LAB516 Star the Repo for post-Ignite updates https://github.com/microsoft/ignite25-LAB516-safeguard-your-agents-with-ai-red-teaming-agent-in-microsoft-foundry Join the #model-mondays channel on Discord to get updates on new labs https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1449065 2025-10-08T19:45:14-04:00 2025-10-08T19:47:33-04:00 Building generative AI apps starts with model selection—but earning user trust requires continuous evaluation. In this talk, learn how Azure AI Evaluations SDK helps assess models pre- and post-production, analyze results, and improve quality through Observability. Location: Toronto Date: Oct 1, 2025 Session: https://aitour.microsoft.com/flow/microsoft/toronto26/sessioncatalog/page/sessioncatalog/session/1755310350275001j1Bu Visit the Repo: https://github.com/microsoft/aitour26-LTG151-build-trustworthy-ai-with-systematic-evaluations-in-azure-ai-foundry Join the Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1449064 2025-10-08T19:42:50-04:00 2025-10-08T19:45:42-04:00 As 85% of enterprises embrace multi-model AI strategies, developers face growing complexity in selecting, deploying, and managing the right models for each task. Discover how the model router in Azure AI Foundry intelligently automates model selection based on performance, cost, and latency. This intelligent orchestration layer reduces operational overhead, accelerates deployment, and unlocks scalable AI operations across your organization. Say goodbye to model fatigue and let the router do the strategic lifting. Location: Toronto Date: Oct 1, 2025 Session: https://aitour.microsoft.com/flow/microsoft/toronto26/sessioncatalog/page/sessioncatalog/session/1755310350425001jaaD Visit the Repo: https://github.com/microsoft/aitour26-LTG153-automate-model-selection-and-ai-app-design-with-azure-ai-foundry Join the Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1449063 2025-10-08T19:35:49-04:00 2025-10-08T19:41:37-04:00 Learn how to customize AI models and optimize their performance for your scenario through targeted fine-tuning methods. This session discusses Distillation, RFT and RAFT approaches using Azure AI Foundry, and shows how you can reduce costs and improve precision with less data and complexity. Location: Toronto Date: Oct 1, 2025 Session: https://aitour.microsoft.com/flow/microsoft/toronto26/sessioncatalog/page/sessioncatalog/session/1755310347948001jt2d Visit the Repo: https://github.com/microsoft/aitour26-BRK443-efficient-model-customization-with-azure-ai-foundry Join the Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1438325 2025-09-15T13:06:24-04:00 2025-09-15T13:09:30-04:00 Did you know the Hugging Face collection on Azure AI Foundry Models currently has over 10K options? When should we use them and how do we select the right one? Join us as we talk to Jeff Boudier (VP of Product at Hugging Face) about getting started with Hugging Face models on Azure AI Foundry – and how you can request new additions for your AI development needs. Customer Stories: Draftwise In this episode we're sharing a BUILD 2025 segment from James Ding, CEO and Co-founder at DraftWise, sharing how AI models are revolutionizing legal contracting! Before founding DraftWise, James led product teams at Palantir, building AI and big data solutions for clients in manufacturing, finance, and cybersecurity. He is an inventor with multiple patents in data security, machine learning, and cloud computing. Register: Livestreamed: Sep 15 / https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26132/ Discord AMA: Sep 19 / https://discord.gg/Z8JZsrP5P5?event=1414657387062628442 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/playlist AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1435275 2025-09-08T12:23:16-04:00 2025-09-08T12:24:49-04:00 Observability is about instrumenting AI apps to collect signals that provide insight into model behavior & performance across the GenAIOps lifecycle. Join us as we talk to Han Che about evaluations, red-teaming & end-to-end observability in Azure AI Foundry – for trustworthy AI! Customer Stories: Saifr In this ongoing segment, we continue talking to customers about real world usage of Azure AI technologies and solutions. In this episode we're joined by David Johnston, CTO and Co-founder at Saifr, and Brett Trainor, Head of Partnerships at Saifr who share how Saifr's AI solutions help financial service developers create compliant apps, services and agents!. Register: Livestreamed: Sep 08 / https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26131/ Discord AMA: Sep 12 / https://discord.com/invite/azureaifoundry?event=1382864811649536120 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/playlist AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1429106 2025-08-25T10:07:48-04:00 2025-08-25T10:08:57-04:00 Want to explore natural language and speech capabilities (like text to speech, speech to text, translation etc.) in your browser before switching to code? Try the Azure AI Foundry Speech and Language playground. Join us as we talk to Utkarsh Maheshwari about the Speech resource and how we can use it today to transform the user experience in generative AI applications. Customer Stories: Healow Keeping in with today's theme, we're sharing a prior BUILD 2025 session with Sidd Shah, Vice President at Healow, who shares how Healow uses multimodal AI to enhance healthcare experiences! Register: Livestreamed: Aug 25 / https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26130/ Discord AMA: Aug 29 / https://discord.com/invite/azureaifoundry?event=1382864441191960696 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr4iSCyE7IY AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1429101 2025-08-25T10:00:15-04:00 2025-08-25T10:03:24-04:00 We’re joined by Mistral AI, the European AI innovator behind Mistral Doc AI, now available as a direct from Azure model in Azure AI Foundry. We’ll dive into how this multimodal, multilingual document processing model unlocks complex unstructured content—turning scanned PDFs, images, and handwritten forms into structured, actionable data. From AI sovereignty to real-world use cases across industries, Mistral will share how Doc AI is helping organizations transform their document workflows at scale. On Customer Stories - Keeping in with today's theme, we're sharing a prior session with Srinivas Gadde, Senior Director of Sotfware Engineering at Oracle Health, who shares how fine tuning helps improve quality and reduce latency in a clinical AI setting!. Register: Livestreamed: Aug 18 / https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26129// Discord AMA: Aug 22 / https://discord.gg/azureaifoundry?event=1382864122902745228 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqOecUt_wCc AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1422615 2025-08-12T00:05:47-04:00 2025-08-12T00:10:26-04:00 Want to build agentic AI applications but looking for resources to learn configuration and design patterns? Join as as we talk to Mona Whalin about the Azure AI Foundry AI Agent Catalog – open-source samples you can explore to accelerate your agent development by integration into projects! On our customer stories segment we're also joined by Sukrit Chatterjee, AI Research Engineer at Atomicwork! Sukrit works on designing integrated AI systems that learn from their environment and adapt to task context. And in this episode, he demonstrates the AtomicWork agentic solution for streamlining enterprise workflows. Register: Livestreamed: Aug 11 / https://developer.microsoft.com/reactor/events/26128/ Discord AMA: Aug 15 / https://discord.com/invite/azureaifoundry?event=1382863654961025174 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjSxraAmGMI AMA Transcript: https://github.com/orgs/azure-ai-foundry/discussions/109 AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1419147 2025-08-04T13:06:19-04:00 2025-08-04T13:10:57-04:00 On-device inference is critical if you want to run AI models locally, on your own hardware, e.g., for edge computing needs. Join as as we talk to Maanav Dalal about Foundry Local – a solution built on ONNX Runtime (for use in CPUs, NPUs & GPUs) & taking you from prototype to production. On our customer stories segment we're also joined by Marilyn Morgan Westner (Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer) and Alex Westner, (Co-founder and CEO) at Xander Glasses. Learn how they bring sight to sound with AI-driven captioning on their wearable assistive device. Register: Livestreamed: Aug 04 / https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26127/ Discord AMA: Aug 08 / https://discord.gg/azureaifoundry?event=1382863345777901670 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILBDDCJ0d9g AMA Transcript: https://github.com/orgs/azure-ai-foundry/discussions/108 AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1415445 2025-07-28T12:13:41-04:00 2025-07-28T12:21:51-04:00 Want to bring the power of AI-assisted development to Azure workflows? Join us as we talk to Sandeep Sen about two key tools – the Azure MCP server, and the GitHub Copilot Extension for Azure – that can help you understand, debug & build with Azure resources and services (beyond just Azure AI Foundry) with the power of natural language. We're also joined by Kurt DeMaagd, Chief AI Officer and co-founder at SightMachine, who walks us through how SightMachine's Filler AI streamlines operations on the manufacturing floor using Azure AI Foundry models. Register: Livestreamed: Jul 21 / https://https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26126/ Discord AMA: Jul 25 / https://discord.com/invite/qxuvxPBR?event=1382862912804360354 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSrg1uP136g AMA Transcript: https://github.com/orgs/azure-ai-foundry/discussions/106 AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1411340 2025-07-21T12:00:23-04:00 2025-07-21T12:37:35-04:00 Azure AI Foundry Labs is a hub to explore cutting-edge research from Microsoft. Join us as we talk to SeokJin Han and Saumil Shrivastava about two key projects – the MCP Server for Azure AI Foundry, and the Magentic-UI for advancing research on human-in-the-loop experiences with AI. We're also joined by Steve Frederickson, Head of Product and Zachary Meierhoffer, Product Manager at Capacity, who walk through how Capacity's Answer Engine uses Azure AI Foundry models to unlock insights from knowledge that exists across their organizations. Register: Livestreamed: Jul 21 / https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26110/ Discord AMA: Jul 25 / https://discord.gg/D7bAFEwj?event=1382862595849064548 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chjpVSrk3jA AMA Transcript: https://github.com/orgs/azure-ai-foundry/discussions/105 AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1404462 2025-07-14T12:39:03-04:00 2025-07-14T12:42:16-04:00 Model Mondays S2E05: Fine Tuning & Distillation Model customization is critical to ensuring the model is optimized for your application requirements. Join us as we talk to Dave Voutila about fine-tuning Azure OpenAI models, using distillation techniques for efficient knowledge transfer, and other best practices in Azure AI Foundry. Register: Livestreamed: Jul 14 / https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26109/ Discord AMA: Jul 18 / https://discord.gg/azureaifoundry?event=1382862245721014476 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSNGzBB20aw AMA Transcript: https://github.com/orgs/azure-ai-foundry/discussions/91 AMA Schedule: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) tag:speakerdeck.com,2005:Talk/1393866 2025-07-03T16:28:01-04:00 2025-07-14T12:36:29-04:00 Model Mondays S2E04: AI Developer Experiences How can we streamline the AI developer journey from model selection and usage to evaluation and app deployment? Join us as we talk to Leo Yao about the AI Toolkit and Azure AI Foundry extensions for Visual Studio Code – and the key capabilities they provide for generative AI app & agent development. Register: Livestreamed: Jul 07 / https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/26108/ Discord AMA: Jul 11 / https://discord.gg/azureaifoundry?event=1382861578201858058 Catch-up After: Livestream Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNiFbf3XP6k AMA Transcript: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/forum About Model Mondays: GitHub: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/ Livestream: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/rsvp Discord: https://aka.ms/model-mondays/discord Nitya Narasimhan, PhD (@nitya) 2026-01-22T18:12:38-05:00