Azure for mission-critical workloads in healthcare: EHR and beyond

By Dustin Ward

In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, digital transformation is no longer a luxury but a necessity. One of the most critical components of this transformation is the electronic health record (EHR) system, which plays a pivotal role in healthcare operations and care delivery. Organizations are actively exploring alternatives for their traditional on-premises infrastructures to overcome…

AI agents at work: The new frontier in business automation

By Dustin Ward

Microsoft’s AI agents are at the forefront of a significant transformation in modern business operations. These intelligent agents automate routine tasks, helping employees by freeing up valuable time to be more efficient, productive, and empowered to drive business—and industries are discovering their value. Across sectors such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing, AI agents handle tasks…

Announcing the availability of the o3-mini reasoning model in Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service

By Dustin Ward

We are pleased to announce that OpenAI o3-mini is now available in Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. o3-mini adds significant cost efficiencies compared with o1-mini with enhanced reasoning, with new features like reasoning effort control and tools, while providing comparable or better responsiveness. o3-mini’s advanced capabilities, combined with its efficiency gains, make it a powerful tool…

DeepSeek R1 is now available on Azure AI Foundry and GitHub

By Dustin Ward

DeepSeek R1 is now available in the model catalog on Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, joining a diverse portfolio of over 1,800 models, including frontier, open-source, industry-specific, and task-based AI models. As part of Azure AI Foundry, DeepSeek R1 is accessible on a trusted, scalable, and enterprise-ready platform, enabling businesses to seamlessly integrate advanced AI…

Introducing Leading the Shift, a new Microsoft Azure podcast

By Dustin Ward

The AI platform shift brings immense opportunity, but the road to success isn’t always easy or clear. That’s why we’ve asked customers, partners, Microsoft experts, and other leaders to share their journeys and insights in our new podcast, Leading the Shift. In each episode, we’ll explore how our guests are using data, AI, and cloud…

Microsoft and OpenAI evolve partnership to drive the next phase of AI

By Dustin Ward

We are thrilled to continue our strategic partnership with OpenAI and to partner on Stargate. Today’s announcement is complementary to what our two companies have been working on together since 2019. The key elements of our partnership remain in place for the duration of our contract through 2030, with our access to OpenAI’s IP, our…