Microsoft has rolled out a wave of updates across its Azure AI stack, including early access to the Arm-based Cobalt 200 virtual machines, expanded capabilities for Azure AI Foundry, and significant upgrades to voice agent services. The changes reflect Microsoft's push to support agentic AI workloads and provide more flexible, local-first options for enterprise customers.
Cobalt 200 and New VM Families
Azure Cobalt 200, Microsoft's custom Arm-based chip, is now available in early access preview. The company claims a 50% performance improvement over the previous generation, specifically optimized for agentic AI workloads running on Linux. Alongside Cobalt 200, Microsoft previewed Lasv5 and Laosv5 VMs powered by AMD's EPYC "Turin" processors. These machines are designed to handle the chatty, orchestration-heavy patterns typical of agent pipelines, which differ from traditional web applications. Early access is currently limited to a waitlist.
Azure AI Foundry Becomes a Control Plane
Azure AI Foundry is absorbing more of the AI lifecycle with two notable additions. Foundry IQ and Fabric IQ simplify connecting disparate data sources for agent workflows, reducing the integration pain often associated with grounding agents in real business data. Foundry Local allows running smaller, efficient models locally instead of always hitting hosted endpoints, targeting regulated industries, edge devices, or users looking to reduce latency and costs. This local-model approach offers an alternative to the prevailing trend of scaling up model size.
Voice Agent Upgrades and New Certifications
Azure Speech has introduced Neural HD V3 voices in public preview, featuring prompt-level instruction control for finer voice customization. MAI-Voice 2.0 supports over 10 languages. On the speech-to-speech front, GPT-Realtime 1.5 and a new Azure-Realtime model are in public preview for natural multilingual voice output. A Voice Live Evaluation Harness now scores voice agents against 13 Foundry evaluators. Separately, Microsoft Discovery, a platform for building and governing agentic AI workflows, has reached general availability. In certification news, DP-100 (Azure Data Scientist Associate) has been retired and replaced by AI-300 (Machine Learning Operations Engineer Associate). New certifications AB-100 (Agentic AI Business Solutions Architect) and AB-620 (AI Agent Builder Associate) are rolling out to address the growing demand for agent-building skills.