Microsoft Azure AI Foundry Launches Deep Research API for Transparent, Automated Enterprise Web Research

summary:Microsoft Azure AI Foundry introduces Deep Research, a powerful API and SDK that automates enterprise-scale web research by integrating OpenAI’s advanced agentic capabilities with Bing Search. It enables developers to build transparent, auditable, and composable AI agents for complex workflows and governance. Unique bullet points:

Introducing Deep Research in Azure AI Foundry Agent Service

Microsoft just dropped a game-changer for AI research automation with the public preview of Deep Research in Azure AI Foundry. This new API and SDK-based tool taps into OpenAI’s advanced agentic research capabilities, fully integrated with Azure’s enterprise-grade platform. If you’re a developer or AI pro, this means building smarter, more transparent research agents that can scour the web, analyze data, and automate complex workflows—all at scale.

What’s New with Deep Research?

Deep Research isn’t just another chatbot. It’s designed to automate web-scale research using Bing Search as its backbone, ensuring every insight is traceable and source-backed. Developers can program agents that plug directly into apps, workflows, or other agents, making research a reusable, production-ready service. Plus, it seamlessly connects with Azure Functions and Logic Apps to automate tasks like reporting and notifications.

“Deep Research in Foundry Agent Service can evolve with your needs—ready for automation, extensibility, and integration with future internal data sources.”

Major Updates and Features

Multi-step research pipeline: The agent clarifies your query with GPT-4o and GPT-4.1, scopes the task precisely, and gathers fresh, authoritative data using Bing Search.
Deep analysis and synthesis: Unlike simple summaries, the agent reasons step-by-step, adapts to new insights, and delivers nuanced, comprehensive answers.
Full transparency and compliance: Outputs include detailed reasoning paths, source citations, and clarifications, perfect for regulated industries.
Composable and programmable: Invoke research agents anywhere via API, integrate into multi-agent workflows, and automate end-to-end business processes.

“Research is no longer a manual, one-off task, but a building block for digital transformation and continuous intelligence.”

Why This Matters for Developers and Enterprises

Deep Research empowers organizations to embed AI-driven research directly into their business apps. It automates multi-step processes and governs knowledge at enterprise scale with Azure’s security and compliance. The flexible architecture supports diverse use cases—from market analysis to regulatory reporting—making AI research a powerful, scalable service.

Pricing Snapshot

Input tokens: $10.00 per 1M tokens
Cached input tokens: $50 per 1M tokens
Output tokens: $40.00 per 1M tokens
Additional charges apply for Bing Search and GPT clarifications

Getting Started with Deep Research

The limited public preview is live now. Developers can sign up to gain early access, explore detailed documentation, and start building powerful AI agents with Azure AI Foundry. Microsoft promises ongoing updates and customer stories soon, so stay tuned!

Ready to revolutionize your AI research workflows? Dive into Deep Research and unlock next-level automation today.

Deep Research leverages GPT-4o and GPT-4.1 models to clarify and scope research tasks precisely.

Research outputs include detailed reasoning paths and source citations for full transparency and compliance.

Composable agents can be integrated with Azure Functions and Logic Apps for multi-step automation.

Pricing is token-based, with separate charges for Bing Search grounding and GPT model usage.

Available now in limited public preview, enabling early access for developers to build custom AI research agents.

From the Microsoft Azure Blog