Use cases
Start from what you want to build. Each page explains the approach, the technologies involved and when a simpler option is enough.
Automate business processes
Automate repeatable work with rules-based flows first (Power Automate cloud and desktop flows, Azure Logic Apps), and add AI steps or agents only where inputs are messy or a step needs judgment.
3 technologies
Build an AI agent
Check whether a task needs an agent at all, then choose the lightest Microsoft route that fits: a ready-made agent, Agent Builder, Copilot Studio, Foundry Agent Service, or code with Microsoft Agent Framework.
5 technologies
Build custom AI models
Pick the least custom option that meets quality: prebuilt Foundry Tools, fine-tuning foundation models in Microsoft Foundry, or full custom training with Azure Machine Learning or Azure Databricks on GPU infrastructure.
5 technologies
Deliver virtual desktops
Give users secure Windows desktops from the cloud: Windows 365 for per-user Cloud PCs at a fixed monthly price, or Azure Virtual Desktop when multi-session, RemoteApp or on-premises hosting on Azure Local matter.
4 technologies
Detect and respond to threats
Combine Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Security Copilot so analysts work from correlated incidents, contain attacks automatically and investigate faster, while planning for Sentinel moving to the Defender portal by March 2027.
4 technologies
Govern AI agents
Keep an inventory of every agent, give each one an identity and an accountable human sponsor, limit what it can reach and watch what it does, using Microsoft Agent 365, Microsoft Entra Agent ID, Purview, Defender and Foundry Control Plane.
5 technologies
Ground AI in company data
Give assistants and agents permission-aware access to company documents and data through retrieval (Azure AI Search and Foundry IQ) or Microsoft 365 grounding (Work IQ), instead of retraining models on private content.
5 technologies
Modernize applications
Assess the application estate with Azure Migrate, upgrade Java, .NET and C++ code with GitHub Copilot modernization, and host each workload on App Service, Azure Container Apps or AKS according to how much control it needs.
4 technologies
Modernize databases
Move SQL Server and open-source databases to managed Azure services, choosing Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure SQL Database, SQL Server on Azure VMs, Azure Database for PostgreSQL or Azure Cosmos DB by compatibility, control and scale needs.
4 technologies
Prepare data for AI
Clean up permissions, label sensitive content, retire stale files and set AI-specific data controls so Microsoft Copilot, agents and other AI apps work only with current, appropriately shared data.
4 technologies
Roll out Copilot safely
Plan a Microsoft Copilot (formerly Microsoft 365 Copilot) rollout that fixes oversharing first, meets the technical prerequisites, starts with a defined group of early adopters and measures use before licenses spread across the organization.
4 technologies
Run AI at the edge
Run models close to where data is created: on a single device with Foundry Local or a Copilot+ PC NPU, or on site with Azure Local, Azure Arc and Azure IoT Operations when connectivity, latency or sovereignty rule out a cloud round trip.
5 technologies
Secure identities
Protect sign-ins for people, workloads and AI agents with Microsoft Entra: phishing-resistant passwordless methods, Conditional Access, risk-based policies and governed, time-limited access, with device health checked through Intune.
4 technologies
Speed up software development
Use GitHub Copilot in the editor, the command line and on GitHub.com, including the cloud agent that prepares pull requests, while human review, tests and pipelines stay in charge of what ships.
3 technologies
Unify analytics on one platform
Bring data integration, engineering, warehousing, real-time analytics and BI onto Microsoft Fabric over OneLake, use shortcuts and mirroring to avoid extra copies, and keep Azure Databricks where Spark-scale machine learning with Unity Catalog matters.
5 technologies
Use AI in customer service
Add AI to customer service in layers: Copilot help for representatives, autonomous agents for case and knowledge work, and self-service agents over chat and voice that hand off to people with the full conversation.
4 technologies
How to use these guides
There are 16 use cases. Each one names the business problem, the approach that usually works, a conceptual architecture and the role every technology plays in it. It also lists what you need before you start, the main risks, and the cases where a simpler or non-Microsoft option is enough. Every technology links to its own profile with official sources.
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