Technical depth on AI, Azure, Next.js, and the engineering decisions behind them.
Manufacturing corpora mix scanned paper, CAD exports, work instructions, and supplier specs. Making them searchable with high recall and precision requires a thoughtful Azure AI Search skillset and indexer design. This post walks through the OCR, entity extraction, chunking, and semantic ranking choices that separate production-quality indexes from POCs.
One year after MCP shipped, this is what adoption actually looks like — server ecosystems, integration patterns, security concerns like tool poisoning and prompt injection, and the open questions heading into 2026.
Microsoft renamed Azure Cognitive Search to Azure AI Search in late 2023 and added substantial vector, semantic, and agentic-retrieval capabilities. Manufacturing teams running legacy Cognitive Search deployments need a structured migration plan — not a like-for-like upgrade, but a targeted modernisation of the features that matter most.
Manufacturing document processing is a high-volume, high-format-diversity problem. Azure AI Search (formerly Azure Cognitive Search) is the Microsoft-native platform that fits it well when configured correctly. This post walks through the architecture patterns that actually ship at industrial scale.
A year-end, hype-free review of where agentic AI actually shipped in 2025, which patterns graduated from pilot to production, and which still need work before they are safe to trust with consequential decisions.
Microsoft Ignite BRKSP486: Citrix and Microsoft reveal the 7-stage AI maturity framework. Computer use agents operate existing apps without APIs. Progress from shadow AI to autonomous orchestration with secure infrastructure.
Microsoft Ignite BRK305: Agent 365 provides unified discovery, identity, security, observability, and Microsoft 365 integration for AI agents. Microsoft Agent Framework and Agent 365 SDK enable governed agent ecosystems.
Microsoft Ignite BRK270: Transform compliance from burden to accelerator. Microsoft Purview, Compliance Manager, AI Baseline, Regulatory Navigator. Automated governance for GDPR, AI Act, NIS2. 3-5x faster deployments, 70-90% less audit time.
Microsoft Ignite BRK203: Reasoning models as the brains behind autonomous agents. Multi-step problem solving, explainable decisions, agentic workflows (lead scoring, content generation, support). Foundry 11,000+ model catalog, customer stories from healthcare and legal sectors.
Microsoft Ignite BRK194: Model Context Protocol (MCP) standardizes agent-tool communication across platforms. Azure API Center integration, federated registries, cross-cloud orchestration, and enterprise governance for scalable agentic ecosystems.
Microsoft Ignite BRK193: Build agents with Azure AI Search knowledge features. Connect to SharePoint, web, blob. Hybrid search (keyword+vector+semantic), agentic retrieval with query planning, reasoning effort modes, Foundry IQ with MCP protocol. Code-focused implementation guide.
Microsoft Ignite BRK188: Fine-tuning in Microsoft Foundry transforms generic models into production-ready agents. Synthetic data generation, supervised + reinforcement fine-tuning, 40-90% cost reduction, 95%+ accuracy. Real-world results: 2M docs/day, $27M savings.