Microsoft Build 2025 Recap: AI Agents, Azure AI Foundry, and Developer Tools with Complete Release Timeline

Microsoft Build 2025, held from May 19-22, brought a wave of innovations focused on AI, cloud services, and developer tools. This recap highlights the most significant announcements from the event, organized by category for easy reference.

Availability Timeline

Here’s a breakdown of when various announced features and products will be available:

Available Now (Generally Available)

• GitHub Copilot agent mode
• GitHub Models
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) as open source
• Command Palette in PowerToys
• Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit for Visual Studio
• Microsoft 365 Agents SDK
• SQL Server Management Studio 21
• Azure AI Foundry Agent Service
• Prompt Shields in Azure AI Content Safety
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 features (basic version)

Available Now (Preview)

• GitHub Copilot coding agent
• App modernization capabilities in GitHub Copilot
• Azure AI Foundry Observability enhancements
• Model Router in Azure AI Foundry
• Agentic retrieval in Azure AI Search
• Global secondary index in Azure Cosmos DB
• PostgreSQL extension for Visual Studio Code
• Microsoft Purview SDK
• Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro
• Windows AI Foundry components
• VBS Enclave SDK

Coming in June 2025

• Microsoft 365 Copilot Tuning
• Copilot Search and Copilot Memory
• Data Loss Prevention for Microsoft 365 Copilot (late June)
• Zero onboarding fees for individual developers in Microsoft Store

Coming in Summer 2025

• WinGet Configuration
• Edit command-line text editor in Windows Insider Program

Coming Soon

• SRE agent (next few weeks)
• Flux Pro 1.1 from Black Forest Labs
• Sora from OpenAI
• SQL Server 2025
• Cosmos DB (NoSQL) in Fabric
• Translator API in Microsoft Edge
• PDF translation in Microsoft Edge (next month)
• MCP on Windows (private developer preview in coming months)

AI at Work

Copilot and Agent Capabilities

• Copilot Tuning: Companies can now train Microsoft 365 Copilot on their own data for domain-specific tasks, ensuring tuned models respect permissions of training data. Available in June for customers with 5,000+ Copilot licenses.
• Agent Collaboration in Teams: New tools allow developers to build smarter agents for Teams that can:
  • Communicate securely via the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol
  • Remember user interactions for more personalized experiences
  • Participate in Teams meetings for both private and group use
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2: The spring release includes:
  • Updated Microsoft 365 Copilot app designed for human-agent collaboration
  • New Create experience powered by OpenAI GPT-4o for image generation
  • Copilot Notebooks for converting content into insights and actions
  • Copilot Search and Memory (rolling out in June)

Copilot Studio Enhancements

• Pro-code Features: New capabilities help developers create more powerful agents with tools like:
  • Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit for Visual Studio
  • Microsoft 365 Agents SDK for building enterprise-grade, scalable agents
  • Agent Store for discovering agents across Microsoft 365 Copilot endpoints
• Natural Language Building Tools: New features allow low-code makers to build better agents, including:
  • Support for multiple agent systems working together
  • Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for consistent data access
  • Computer use tool for automating UI-based tasks
  • Code Interpreter for running Python code within agents

Azure AI Innovations

Azure AI Foundry

• New Models: Azure AI Foundry Models expanded with:
  • Grok 3 from xAI (available now)
  • Flux Pro 1.1 from Black Forest Labs (coming soon)
  • Sora from OpenAI (coming soon in preview)
  • 10,000+ open-source models from Hugging Face
• Agent Service: Now generally available, enabling developers to design and deploy enterprise-grade AI agents with features like:
  • Multi-agent workflows for complex tasks
  • Support for open protocols like A2A and MCP
  • Integration with knowledge sources like Bing, SharePoint, and Fabric
  • AgentOps capabilities for tracing, evaluation, and monitoring
• Observability Tools: New tools in preview for monitoring AI applications including:
  • Built-in metrics for performance, quality, cost, and safety
  • Enhanced developer support throughout the agent lifecycle
  • Continuous monitoring dashboard for production agents
• Azure AI Foundry Local: Bringing AI to Windows and MacOS with:
  • Local model inferencing
  • Model and agent services
  • Model playground for efficient local AI development

Security Enhancements

• Content Safety Features: Several new capabilities including:
  • Prompt Shields (generally available)
  • Task adherence controls (in preview)
  • PII detection content filter powered by Azure AI Language

Database & Analytics

Microsoft Fabric and Data Capabilities

• Cosmos DB in Fabric: Preview bringing enterprise-grade NoSQL capabilities to Microsoft Fabric, enabling organizations to unify semi-structured operational data with analytical datasets.
• Chat with Data: New experiences allow teams to explore data through natural language:
  • Chat with your data in Power BI – accessible from the left pane
  • Fabric data agents integration with Microsoft Copilot Studio
• Digital Twin Builder: New capability within Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric offering a no-code/low-code interface for creating digital representations of real-world environments.

Database Improvements

• Global Secondary Index in Azure Cosmos DB: Now in preview, enabling faster queries on subsets of NoSQL data without impacting transactional performance.
• PostgreSQL Tools: New capabilities including:
  • PostgreSQL extension for Visual Studio Code
  • GitHub Copilot AI assistance for PostgreSQL
• SQL Server 2025: Preview includes:
  • Advanced semantic search alongside full text search
  • Native JSON support and built-in REST API
  • Microsoft Entra ID managed identities support
  • Zero-ETL real-time analytics with Fabric

Developer Tools and GitHub

Agentic DevOps

• GitHub Copilot Coding Agent: Now in preview, allows developers to delegate tasks like refactoring code, improving test coverage, fixing defects, and implementing features.
• App Modernization: New capabilities help developers quickly modernize Java and .NET applications:
  • AI-assisted code assessment and remediation
  • Autonomous version upgrade planning and execution
• SRE Agent: In preview soon, this agent will automatically respond to production alerts, mitigate issues, and determine root causes, reducing resolution time from hours to minutes.
• GitHub Models: Extends AI models from Azure AI Foundry directly to GitHub, enabling developers to experiment with models from OpenAI, Meta, Cohere, Microsoft, and Mistral.
• Open-source GitHub Copilot Chat: Microsoft is open-sourcing GitHub Copilot Chat in VS Code, integrating AI-powered capabilities into the VS Code open-source repository.

Windows Innovations

Windows AI Foundry

• Windows ML: An evolution of DirectML, offering:
  • Simplified deployment without needing to package ML runtimes
  • Automatic adaptation to new AI hardware
  • New tools for model preparation and optimization
• Foundry Local: Integrates with model catalogs like Ollama and NVIDIA NIMs:
  • Rich catalog of ready-to-use open-source models
  • Command Line Interface for model interaction
• Windows AI APIs: Ready-to-use APIs powered by on-device models:
  • LoRA for Phi Silica (in preview)
  • Knowledge Retrieval for LLMs and Semantic Search (private preview)

Developer Experience Improvements

• Model Context Protocol (MCP) on Windows: Standardized framework for AI agents to connect with native Windows apps (private developer preview coming soon).
• App Actions on Windows: Helps increase app discoverability and engagement by enabling apps to provide functionality to agents.
• Windows Developer Tools: Productivity improvements including:
  • WinGet Configuration for replicating development environments
  • Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) now open source
  • Advanced Windows Settings for easier customization
  • Command Palette in PowerToys for accessing commands

Microsoft Store Updates

• Zero Onboarding Fees: Individual developers can publish to Microsoft Store for free starting in June 2025.
• App Campaigns: Developers can run campaigns to promote their Windows apps in Microsoft Store and other Microsoft products.
• Enhanced Health Reports: New insights into app quality and performance with metrics like crash rate, hang rate, and affected device counts.

Security Advancements

• Microsoft Purview SDK: In preview, providing REST APIs for embedding data security and compliance controls into AI apps.
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud: Integration with Azure AI Foundry to provide security insights, including posture recommendations and threat protection alerts.
• Microsoft Entra Agent ID: In preview, enabling organizations to assign unique identifiers to AI agents for improved management and security.
• Post-quantum Cryptography: Integration of quantum-safe cryptography algorithms in Windows Insiders (Build 27852+) and SymCrypt-OpenSSL.

Industry and Science

• Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro: In preview, allowing customers to deploy geospatial data capabilities within Azure.
• Microsoft Discovery: An enterprise agentic platform to accelerate research and discovery using specialized AI agents.

These announcements demonstrate Microsoft’s continued focus on AI, agents, and cloud services, with an emphasis on developer productivity, security, and enterprise-ready capabilities across their product ecosystem.