Providers Overview

Microsoft Agent Framework supports several types of agents to accommodate different use cases and requirements. All agents are derived from a common base class, AIAgent, which provides a consistent interface for all agent types.

Provider Comparison

Provider	Function Tools	Structured Output	Code Interpreter	File Search	MCP Tools	Background Responses
Azure OpenAI	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
OpenAI	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅
Azure AI Foundry	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Anthropic	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Ollama	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
GitHub Copilot	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Copilot Studio	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Custom	Varies	Varies	Varies	Varies	Varies	Varies

Important

If you use Microsoft Agent Framework to build applications that operate with third-party servers or agents, you do so at your own risk. We recommend reviewing all data being shared with third-party servers or agents.

Simple agents based on inference services

Agent Framework makes it easy to create simple agents based on many different inference services. Any inference service that provides a Microsoft.Extensions.AI.IChatClient implementation can be used to build these agents.

The following providers are available for .NET:

• Azure OpenAI — Full-featured provider with chat completion, responses API, and tool support.
• OpenAI — Direct OpenAI API access with chat completion and responses API.
• Azure AI Foundry — Persistent server-side agents with managed chat history.
• Anthropic — Claude models with function tools and streaming support.
• Ollama — Run open-source models locally.
• GitHub Copilot — GitHub Copilot SDK integration with shell and file access.
• Copilot Studio — Integration with Microsoft Copilot Studio agents.
• Custom — Build your own provider by implementing the AIAgent base class.

Agent providers

Agent Framework supports many different inference services through chat clients. Each provider offers a different set of features:

• Azure OpenAI — Full-featured provider with Azure identity support.
• OpenAI — Direct OpenAI API access.
• Azure AI Foundry — Persistent server-side agents with managed chat history.
• Anthropic — Claude models with extended thinking and hosted tools support.
• Ollama — Run open-source models locally.
• GitHub Copilot — GitHub Copilot SDK integration.
• Custom — Build your own provider by implementing the BaseAgent class.

Next steps

Azure OpenAI Provider