The Signals Loop: Fine-tuning for world-class AI apps and agents 

By Dustin Ward

In the early days of the AI shift, AI applications were largely built as thin layers on top of off-the-shelf foundation models. But as developers began tackling more complex use cases, they quickly encountered the limitations of simply using RAG on top of off-the-shelf models. While this approach offered a fast path to production, it…

Microsoft’s commitment to supporting cloud infrastructure demand in Asia

By Dustin Ward

Microsoft supports cloud infrastructure demand in Asia As Asia surges ahead in digital transformation, Microsoft is committed to expanding its cloud infrastructure to match the continent’s demand. In 2025, Microsoft launched new Azure datacenter regions in Malaysia and Indonesia, and is set to expand further with new datacenter regions launching in India and Taiwan in…

Azure Kubernetes Service Automatic: Fast and frictionless Kubernetes for all

By Dustin Ward

Today, I’m excited to announce the general availability of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Automatic, delivering Kubernetes that’s already configured, optimized, and ready to run—right out of the box. AKS Automatic accelerates app delivery with automation, simplifies Kubernetes operations through intelligent defaults, and enables secure, compliant workloads optimized for AI and cloud-native use cases. AKS Automatic will set the…

Agent Factory: The new era of agentic AI—common use cases and design patterns

By Dustin Ward

This blog post is the first out of a six-part blog series called Agent Factory which will share best practices, design patterns, and tools to help guide you through adopting and building agentic AI. Beyond knowledge: Why enterprises need agentic AI Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) marked a breakthrough for enterprise AI—helping teams surface insights and answer…

Project Flash update: Advancing Azure Virtual Machine availability monitoring

By Dustin Ward

Previously, we shared an update on Project Flash as part of our Advancing Reliability blog series, reaffirming our commitment to helping Azure customers detect and diagnose virtual machine (VM) availability issues with speed and precision. This year, we’re excited to unveil the latest innovations that take VM availability monitoring to the next level—enabling customers to…