Your company’s synonyms, abbreviations and approved names.
Microsoft Foundry
Foundry does more than Copilot and often costs less.
Copilot is a good assistant for Word, Outlook and Teams. But when AI should work in your business processes, Microsoft Foundry is usually the better tool. You choose the right model, for example from OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral or Meta, build agents that work in CRM and ERP, and pay per use instead of per user. We turn this into solutions that fit your process exactly.
Explore functions and applications ↓
NXTGN AI CORE · Our AI product
AI using your knowledge and terminology.
A language model does not know your internal abbreviations or the relationships between your assets, components and business records. NXTGN AI CORE represents this context using a knowledge graph, glossary and taxonomy. Documents and databases supply the evidence; your specialists define terminology and relationships.
Explore NXTGN AI CORE →Relationships between terms, assets, components and sources.
Models, embeddings and OCR on your servers or hosted on a dedicated NXTGN instance.
Functions
What Foundry adds
The right model for every task
Foundry offers models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Meta, DeepSeek and many more. We compare them on your own data, choose the right one and switch when a better one arrives.
Agents that work in the process
Agents with their own identity and clear rights read and write in CRM, ERP and business systems. Copilot summarises, a Foundry agent gets the job done.
Pay per use
You pay for actual usage, not per employee and month. When many people only occasionally need AI, that is considerably cheaper.
In any application
The AI runs in your business application, customer portal, website or Teams, not just in Office.
Test before going live
Evaluations, tests and monitoring show how well the AI works before your customers see it.
Business applications
Typical use cases for Microsoft Foundry
AI in customer service
Classify tickets, prepare replies and pull in ERP data, as for the online retailer with close to 1,500 tickets a day.
Read and process documents
Invoices, orders and delivery notes are read, checked and passed to CRM or ERP.
Assistants for customers and partners
An assistant in the portal or on the website answers questions with your knowledge and hands over to your team when needed.
When data must not leave the company
Then NXTGN AI CORE with local open-weight models is the better choice.
Architecture
Copilot or Foundry?
Both come from Microsoft. For office work Copilot is convenient, for your processes Foundry is usually stronger and cheaper.
Microsoft Copilot
- Licence per user and month, however much it is used
- Works in Word, Outlook, Teams and Excel
- Microsoft chooses the model
- Made for an individual's office work
Microsoft Foundry
- Pay per use
- Runs in any application, portal or website
- You choose the model, including from Anthropic, Mistral or Meta
- Made for business processes, with agents in CRM and ERP
Requirements and boundaries
We plan the costs beforehand with real volumes. You know before the start what a case will cost.
Is Foundry cheaper than Copilot?
Often, yes. Copilot is paid per user and month, in Foundry you pay per use. With many users making few requests, or with a clearly defined process, that is usually considerably cheaper. We calculate it with your figures.
Is Foundry a language model?
No. Foundry is the platform where you choose models and build and run agents. We choose the model to fit the task.
Where is the data processed?
Depending on the deployment, in defined Azure regions, for example only in the EU. We choose the deployment to fit your requirements.
Do we still need Copilot?
Copilot can make sense for office work. Many companies do well with both, Copilot for individual employees and Foundry for processes.
Related topics
Related products and services
Product documentationMicrosoft Foundry ↗Editorial review: 12 October 2026. Features and availability can change.
Planning to use Microsoft Foundry?
Discuss your workflow, existing systems, implementation and operational requirements with us.
