GPT-5 in Azure AI Foundry: The future of AI apps and agents starts here

Microsoft has announced the general availability of OpenAI’s new flagship model, GPT-5, in Azure AI Foundry. This release marks a significant leap in large language model (LLM) capabilities, offering the most powerful performance across key benchmarks to date. For business leaders and developers, the focus has shifted beyond simple chatbots to AI that can generate, reason, and deliver measurable outcomes safely and at scale. GPT-5 in Azure AI Foundry combines frontier reasoning with high-performance generation and cost efficiency, all powered by Microsoft Azure’s enterprise-grade platform. This enables organizations to confidently transition from pilot projects to full production deployments.

GPT-5 in Azure AI Foundry: Built for real-world workloads

The GPT-5 family is accessible via API and orchestrated by the model router in Azure AI Foundry. The suite includes:

• GPT-5: A full reasoning model with deep analytical capabilities, ideal for complex tasks such as code generation, supporting a massive 272k token context.
• GPT-5 mini: Designed for real-time app and agent experiences requiring reasoning and tool calling to solve customer problems.
• GPT-5 nano: A new ultra-low-latency reasoning model optimized for speed and rich Q&A capabilities.
• GPT-5 chat: Enables natural, multimodal, multi-turn conversations with 128k token context, maintaining awareness throughout agentic workflows.
Together, these models provide a seamless continuum from rigorous coding and agentic tasks to straightforward Q&A, all accessible through a single Azure AI Foundry endpoint. Under the hood, GPT-5 unifies advanced reasoning, code generation, and natural language interaction. It supports multi-step tool use and long action chains with transparent, auditable decisions. As a frontier-level coding model, GPT-5 can plan complex workflows, build migrations, refactor code, and produce tests and documentation with clear rationale. Developer controls such as reasoning_effort and verbosity settings allow tuning of depth, speed, and detail. New freeform tool-calling features broaden compatibility without rigid schemas.

Orchestrate with the model router—then scale with agents

The introduction of GPT-5 is more than a model update; it’s a platform advancement. The model router in Foundry Models intelligently selects the optimal GPT-5 family model based on prompt complexity, performance needs, and cost efficiency, saving up to 60% on inferencing costs without sacrificing quality. Orchestration extends to agents as well. Soon, GPT-5 will be integrated into the Foundry Agent Service, combining frontier models with built-in tools like browser automation and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations. This enables policy-governed, tool-using agents capable of searching, acting in web apps, and completing end-to-end tasks with telemetry and alignment to Microsoft Responsible AI principles.

Accelerating business impact with GPT-5

GPT-5’s capabilities translate directly into business value:
• Research & knowledge work: Accelerates financial and legal analysis, market intelligence, and due diligence by reading at scale and producing traceable, decision-ready outputs.
• Operations & decisioning: Enhances logistics, risk assessment, and claims processing with robust reasoning and policy adherence.
• Copilots & customer experience: Powers multi-turn, multimodal agents that reason in real time, call tools, resolve tasks, and escalate to humans with rich context.
• Software engineering: Excels at code generation, modernization, and quality engineering, improving style and explanations to shorten review cycles.
• Cost and latency sensitive use cases: GPT-5 nano delivers ultra-low-latency, high-accuracy responses, ideal for high-volume, straightforward requests.

GPT-5 customer spotlight

SAP

“SAP is excited to be among the first to leverage the power of GPT-5 in Azure AI Foundry within our generative AI hub in AI Foundation. GPT-5 will enable our product team and developer community to deliver impactful business innovations to our customers.”

—Dr. Walter Sun, SVP and Global Head of AI, SAP SE

Relativity

“GPT-5 in Azure AI Foundry raises the bar for putting legal data intelligence into action. This next-generation AI empowers legal teams to uncover deeper insights, accelerate decision-making, and drive stronger strategies across the legal process.”

—Dr. Aron Ahmadia, Senior Director, Applied Science, Relativity

Hebbia

“The partnership between Hebbia and Azure AI Foundry gives financial professionals an unprecedented edge. GPT-5’s advanced reasoning helps pinpoint critical figures across thousands of documents and structure complex financial analysis with speed and accuracy.”

—Danny Wheller, VP of Business and Strategy

Building with AI in GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code

GPT-5 is rolling out to millions of developers using GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code. It applies advanced reasoning to complex problems such as sophisticated refactoring and navigating large codebases more effectively. GPT-5 helps developers write, test, and deploy code faster and better, supporting agentic coding tasks with improved style and quality. The latest VS Code release enhances the agentic coding experience with an improved GitHub Copilot coding agent that autonomously tackles background tasks. The Copilot chat experience now supports over 128 tools per chat request and includes chat checkpoints to restore workspace changes. An updated Azure AI Foundry extension for VS Code enables developers to build agents directly within the editor, extending Microsoft’s vision to transform software development with AI across the entire lifecycle.

Security, safety, and governance by design

Security and safety are foundational layers protecting AI risk scenarios. GPT-5’s core model is safer than previous versions:

“The Microsoft AI Red Team found GPT-5 to have one of the strongest safety profiles of any OpenAI model, performing on par with—or better than—o3.”

—Dr. Sarah Bird, Chief Product Officer of Responsible AI, Microsoft

Azure AI Foundry adds multiple governance layers:
• Azure AI Content Safety applies protections like prompt shields to detect and mitigate prompt-injection before reaching the model.
• Built-in agent evaluators and the AI Red Teaming Agent conduct alignment, bias, and security tests during development and production.
• Continuous evaluation streams real-time metrics (latency, quality, safety, fairness) into Azure Monitor and Application Insights.
• Security signals integrate with Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
• Runtime metadata and evaluation results feed into Microsoft Purview for audit, data-loss prevention, and regulatory compliance.

Start building today

GPT-5 is available via API in Azure AI Foundry with deployment options optimized for cost-efficiency and governance, including Global Standard and Data Zone (U.S., EU) for data residency and compliance. With Azure AI Foundry’s reliability, real-time evaluations, observability, and secure deployment, organizations can confidently move from pilot to production. The Model Router optimizes quality, latency, and cost across workloads. Learn more about Azure AI Foundry

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

About GPT-5 and Azure AI Foundry

Q: What is GPT-5? A: GPT-5 is OpenAI's latest flagship large language model, offering advanced reasoning and generation capabilities, accessible through Azure AI Foundry. Q: What is Azure AI Foundry? A: Azure AI Foundry is Microsoft's platform for accessing and deploying OpenAI's advanced models, like GPT-5, on the Azure enterprise-grade infrastructure. It provides tools for building, orchestrating, and scaling AI applications. Q: What are the different GPT-5 models available? A: The GPT-5 family includes GPT-5 (full reasoning), GPT-5 mini (real-time app/agent experiences), GPT-5 nano (ultra-low latency), and GPT-5 chat (multimodal conversations). Q: How does the model router in Azure AI Foundry work? A: The model router intelligently selects the most optimal GPT-5 family model for a given prompt based on complexity, performance needs, and cost efficiency, potentially saving up to 60% on inferencing costs. Q: What are the benefits of using GPT-5 in Azure AI Foundry for businesses? A: Businesses can leverage GPT-5 for complex tasks like code generation, advanced data analysis, enhanced customer experiences through AI agents, and improved software engineering. Azure AI Foundry provides the enterprise-grade platform for safe, scalable, and cost-efficient deployments. Q: How is GPT-5 integrated with AI agents? A: GPT-5 will be integrated into the Foundry Agent Service, enabling agents to utilize its advanced reasoning and tool-calling capabilities to perform complex, policy-governed tasks across web applications and workflows. Q: What kind of developer controls are available for GPT-5? A: Developers can tune GPT-5's performance using controls like reasoning_effort and verbosity settings to adjust the depth, speed, and detail of responses. Q: How does Microsoft ensure the security, safety, and governance of GPT-5? A: GPT-5's core model has enhanced safety profiles. Azure AI Foundry adds multiple governance layers, including Azure AI Content Safety, built-in agent evaluators, continuous evaluation streams, and integration with Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Purview.

Development and Deployment

Q: How can developers build with GPT-5? A: Developers can access GPT-5 via API in Azure AI Foundry. Integration with tools like GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code is also facilitated through an updated Azure AI Foundry extension for VS Code. Q: What are the deployment options for GPT-5 in Azure AI Foundry? A: Deployment options include Global Standard and Data Zone (U.S., EU) for data residency and compliance needs, with optimizations for cost-efficiency and governance.

Business Impact and Use Cases

Q: In what business areas can GPT-5 accelerate impact? A: GPT-5 can accelerate impact in research and knowledge work (e.g., financial analysis), operations and decisioning (e.g., risk assessment), copilot and customer experience, and software engineering. Q: How does GPT-5 nano benefit cost and latency-sensitive use cases? A: GPT-5 nano offers ultra-low latency and high accuracy, making it ideal for high-volume, straightforward requests where speed and efficiency are paramount.

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Crypto Market AI's Take

The integration of GPT-5 into Azure AI Foundry represents a significant advancement in enterprise-grade AI capabilities. For businesses operating in the fast-paced crypto market, this means access to more sophisticated AI agents capable of complex analysis, real-time market monitoring, and nuanced strategy development. Our platform, Crypto Market AI, is built on similar principles of leveraging AI for intelligent market insights. We focus on providing AI-driven tools for AI agents and market analysis that can help navigate the complexities of cryptocurrency investments. The enhanced reasoning and generation power of GPT-5 could further refine the accuracy of AI trading bots and analytical models, potentially leading to more robust strategies for identifying market opportunities and managing risks, areas we continuously strive to improve.

More to Read:

• AI Agents: The Future of Business Automation and Customer Engagement
• How to Become a Cryptocurrency Trader
• Understanding Cryptocurrency Ledgers: The Backbone of Blockchain

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Source: Originally published at Microsoft Azure Blog on August 7, 2025.