AI-901 compact: Azure AI Fundamentals with Microsoft Foundry
Understand AI on Azure: the topics of exam AI-901 in plain language, from responsible AI through language models, text, speech and images to agents in Microsoft Foundry.
Search the academy Study plan for this course
Who it is for
For everyone who wants to place AI in Azure and build first small solutions, even without a technical background.
Prerequisites
No programming skills for module C1. For C2 it is enough to read short C# examples; the lessons explain every line. You need an Azure subscription only for the optional try-it steps.
Afterward, you can
- Name the six principles of responsible AI and apply them to examples
- Explain how generative models work and choose models and deployment types by capability
- Tell AI workloads apart: generative and agentic AI, text analysis, speech, computer vision, information extraction
- Deploy a model in Microsoft Foundry, write prompts and build an agent in the portal
- Read short C# examples for chat, agents, text, speech, images and Content Understanding
- Justify for a case which service handles which input and where a person checks
Contents
- C1
5 h
AI concepts and capabilities
responsible AI, how generative models work, models and deployment, workloads, text and speech, images and information extraction
- C2
9 h
AI solutions with Microsoft Foundry
Foundry portal and models, prompts, chat client and agents, text analysis, speech, images, Content Understanding
About 14 hours in all (indicative).
Lessons
The lessons are open on this site, without signing up. It is best to work through them in order.
The lessons stand under their modules, in the order of the course. Click a module to open or close its lessons.
C1 AI concepts and capabilities
Indicative: 5 hours · 6 lessons
Lesson 1 · about 45 minutes
Responsible AI: the six principles
Lesson 2 · about 45 minutes
How generative AI works
Lesson 3 · about 45 minutes
Choosing and deploying models
Lesson 4 · about 45 minutes
AI workloads at a glance
Lesson 5 · about 45 minutes
Understanding text and speech
Lesson 6 · about 45 minutes
Images, image generation and information extraction
C2 AI solutions with Microsoft Foundry
Indicative: 9 hours · 10 lessons
Lesson 7 · about 45 minutes
Getting to know Foundry: project, portal, model
Lesson 8 · about 45 minutes
Writing good prompts
Lesson 9 · about 45 minutes
A chat client with the Foundry SDK
Lesson 10 · about 45 minutes
Building and testing an agent in the Foundry portal
Lesson 11 · about 45 minutes
Calling an agent from an application
Lesson 12 · about 45 minutes
Text analysis in an application
Lesson 13 · about 45 minutes
Speech in an application
Lesson 14 · about 45 minutes
Understanding and generating images
Lesson 15 · about 45 minutes
Extracting information with Content Understanding
Lesson 16 · about 45 minutes
Bringing it together and moving on
Final project: the Kladde
What the Kladde can do after this course
No project: the course follows one case, the invented Nordlicht Reisen GmbH, and does not build on the Kladde.
At the end you can name the AI services of Azure, assign them to a case and read the small examples. The AI track goes deeper in C#.
Certifications
An offer, never a requirement: these Microsoft exams fit this stage. You take them at Microsoft; we are not a Microsoft training partner.
The entry point to the AI certifications, centered on Microsoft Foundry; expects a basic knowledge of Python syntax.
The course follows the topics Microsoft lists for exam AI-901 (in the version of its skills list we read when writing) and replaces neither Microsoft's material nor exam preparation. The exam expects Python skills; the course shows the examples in C# and says where Microsoft shows Python. You take the exam with Microsoft; registration, price and dates are there.
Keep learning with Microsoft Learn
Microsoft's learning paths and documentation that go with this course.