Thanks for attending our session at AI Maitri Global Summit 2026!

This year, I decided to try and participate more actively in different events and widen my repertoire - meaning, I wanted to try and see if there are online conferences, in addition to in-person events, that would be rewarding and useful to submit my sessions to.

On a whim, we decided to submit to AI Maitri Global Summit 2026, since we had a great use case to present for the event's Manufacturing track. And boy am I happy we did!

Something usual... And something unusual! 😉

We ended up finalizing the slides and our demo literally minutes before the session because we hit a snag in the way our sub-agent orchestration worked. And how we were using Work IQ. And how our Copilot Studio agent accessed the API. And other things.

... and that was the usual part! 😅

The unusual part is how an online event can be presented from anywhere. Since the event was during the weekend, I had taken my kids to their grandparents and presented from my childhood room!

As you can see from the picture, my parents have very graciously transformed it into a storage room now...

Oh well. It was still nostalgic in a way!

And I was super happy with the active audience and the questions and feedback we got 😊

Session details

Just to rehash, here's what we presented at the event:

M365 Copilot is the UI, Foundry is the Brain, but what turns intelligence into action?

Everybody is building agents.

Most of them are glorified prompt wrappers.

Meanwhile, the interesting engineering is happening somewhere else.

Organizations across manufacturing and industrial operations are investing heavily in AI-powered automation, operational intelligence, and smarter decision-making. But delivering real business value requires more than simply connecting a chatbot to a language model.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is rapidly becoming the interface layer for AI experiences across Microsoft 365. But the real innovation is increasingly moving into Microsoft Foundry, where developers can choose models, evaluate models, orchestrate agents, combine tools, and build systems that extend far beyond traditional chatbot experiences. Microsoft 365 Agents SDK then connects those systems back into Microsoft 365, Teams, and Copilot.

In this session, we'll build a real agent from the ground up and use it as an excuse to explore the most interesting parts of the modern Microsoft AI stack. Along the way we'll experiment with model selection, evaluations, orchestration patterns, agent memory, Work IQ, custom engine agents, and agent-to-agent collaboration.

We'll also explore what it takes to move beyond simple question-answering and toward systems that can support operational workflows, automate processes, and help users make more informed decisions using the right combination of context, reasoning, and action.

This is not a session about prompt engineering. This is a session about software engineering.

Expect fewer marketing diagrams, more code, more demos, more architectural trade-offs, and at least a few deliberately questionable decisions made in the name of learning.

Because in 2027, Copilot may be the interface. But Foundry is increasingly where the intelligence behind next-generation business operations lives.

• ✅ Learn where Foundry creates real value

  Understand when model choice, evaluations, orchestration, and memory improve business outcomes, operational efficiency, and decision-making, and when they're just unnecessary complexity.

• ✅ Know when Copilot Studio is enough

  Recognize the point where low-code tooling stops being productive and code-first approaches start paying dividends.

• ✅ Avoid expensive architectural mistakes

  Learn which patterns scale, which patterns are maintainable, and which patterns only look impressive in conference demos.

• ✅ Build agents that drive outcomes, not just conversations

  See how Work IQ, custom engine agents, and Foundry can work together to enable automation, operational intelligence, and action-oriented AI experiences.

References

You can find the slides right here (as an attachment, since SlideShare uploads have casually been down for over two months since first being reported in August)!

[Download the slides](materials/AI Maitri Global Summit 2026 - KoskelaMaillot.pdf)

See you around - or online!