Proactive agentic AI with Microsoft Agent Framework

Imagine we’re building something smart — like a robot helper — but software only. Traditional AI libraries are like tools that make our app a little bit clever: they help with recommendations, speech, or making predictions. They add smarts, but we still need to tell the app exactly what to do next.

Now think of an AI agent as something with a goal, not just a function. It doesn’t just answer a question — it figures out what steps to take to achieve something. That means reasoning, using tools, remembering context, and even calling other services.

To make that happen, you need the right toolkit and Microsoft has options for businesses of all sizes that meet you wherever you are along your AI-enablement journey.

Copilot Studio lite

An even simpler way for business folks to describe what they want and have an agent built for them.

Copilot Studio

A low-code, visual space for building agents if you’d rather point and click than write all the plumbing yourself.

Microsoft 365 Agents SDK

Lets you build agents that can run inside broad ecosystems like Teams, Slack, or other channels.

Microsoft Agent Framework

The developer kit for building from scratch and even orchestrating groups of agents working together. Think of it like a set of Lego instructions and pieces for agent architectures.

Foundry Agent Service

A ready-made playground hosted in the cloud. It’s like a little agent workshop you can use without worrying about all the plumbing. 

OpenAI Assistants API

Similar but narrower; it’s great if you want to build on OpenAI models specifically. 

AutoGen

An open-source way to prototype agents quickly, good for experimentation.

The key idea? Pick the right tool for what you’re trying to build and how much coding you want to do.