From Single Agent to Agent Orchestrator: A Stage-Based Architecture with Azure AI Foundry

Regular 50 minute session for SQLBits 2026

TL; DR

This session introduces a practical, stage-based approach to building AI agents with Azure AI Foundry. Starting from a single, task-focused agent, it demonstrates how to incrementally evolve toward an orchestrator-based architecture that coordinates specialized agents. The focus is on avoiding premature complexity, improving maintainability, and designing efficient, scalable agent systems fully aligned with the Microsoft AI stack.

Session Details

Many AI agent architectures fail not because of model quality, but because they start too complex too early. In this session, we take a stage-based approach to building AI agents using Azure AI Foundry, focusing on maximum efficiency in design and implementation.

We’ll start with a single, task-focused agent and evolve it step by step into a central orchestrator agent that owns the UI and coordination logic, while delegating specialized work to backend agents. You’ll learn when a single agent is enough, when orchestration becomes necessary, and how to introduce additional agents without rewriting your system.

The session emphasizes practical architecture evolution, showing how to minimize cognitive load, reduce prompt complexity, and improve maintainability — all while staying fully aligned with the Microsoft AI stack

3 things you'll get out of this session

1. Understand when and why to evolve agent architectures
2. Design a stage-based agent evolution strategy
3. Improve maintainability and efficiency of agent systems