Azure AI Foundry already has more than 1,900 AI models, including the latest from OpenAI, Meta, and others. Today, Microsoft announced that xAI"s flagship Grok 3 and Grok 3 Mini models are now available on Azure AI Foundry.
The Grok 3 models are offered as a direct, first-party offering, so they are hosted and billed directly by Microsoft. Customers using the Grok 3 models on Azure AI Foundry will have all the service-level agreements (SLAs).
Enterprises now rely on different models depending on their use cases. However, selecting models, evaluating them for various use cases, and deploying them is a difficult task for any enterprise. To solve this problem, Microsoft is introducing a new capability in Azure AI Foundry that enables easy model selection with automated model routing, real-time performance monitoring, and more.
The new Model Router preview feature in Azure AI Foundry will automatically select the best OpenAI model for prompts. Microsoft claims that this new feature improves response quality and decreases the overall cost. Thanks to automated evaluation, A/B experimentation, and tracing in Foundry Observability, enterprises can roll back to proven models if new ones underperform.
To help enterprises quickly design, customize, and deploy AI solutions, Azure AI Foundry will offer new AI templates intended for common, high-value use cases and technical patterns.
Finally, Microsoft is bringing the power of small models available in Azure AI Foundry to Windows 11 PCs and macOS. The Azure AI Foundry Local preview will allow developers to easily run AI models, tools, and agents directly on-device. Foundry Local will be part of Windows AI Foundry and will work on the latest Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs running Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm chipsets. Foundry Local will enable AI applications that don"t require the Internet, improve privacy, and reduce costs.