An AI Developer training event hosted by Microsoft and ArchitectNow at the Microsoft Learning Center at Cortex in St. Louis on Oct. 14 drew 25 attendees and yielded rave reviews. The 6-hour event featured guided training in a Microsoft-hosted environment, using the latest Azure AI Foundry and development practices—the opportunity for a more in-depth exploration and comprehensive learning experience.
Last month’s training was inspired by a recent DevUp conference held at the St. Charles Convention Center in August. During that session, Microsoft presented a short hands-on AI experience for developers. That conference left an impression on the WashU attendees, prompting the Technical Architecture team to coordinate the more comprehensive event at Cortex with Microsoft and its partner, ArchitectNow.
The training at Cortex was a hands-on code-based overview of “Azure AI Foundry and Semantic Kernel” Key Concepts. The training equips AI engineers, software developers, solution architects, and technical consultants with the skills necessary to deploy GPT-4 and GPT-5 through the creation and enhancement of chatbots, intelligent search, and scalable AI applications. Each student was provided with the necessary resources and access to AI to implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and integrate external services using OpenAI, requiring minimal code. Participants discussed safe AI practices using content filters and experimented with DALL-E, a tool for generating images.
The development project allowed participants sufficient flexibility to experiment both within and outside the structured approach, enabling the chat system with specialized content and plugins to be customized and experimented with as part of the project’s complexity. Participants were able to lean on the base code provided through Microsoft’s GitHub examples to ensure the code functioned as expected, as well as deviate from the path to experiment. ArchitectNow team members actively assisted the team in coding and facilitated discussions about the challenges with the groups as the project progressed.
In a post-event survey, all respondents affirmed that the event was a valuable use of their time. Key insights gathered from the student survey included new considerations for integrating GenAI capabilities into existing applications and a deeper understanding of plugin architecture for data mining.
Many respondents noted they appreciated learning how GenAI chat experiences could move beyond standard search functionalities on websites and the complexity behind grounding prompts in shaping chat interactions.
Survey responses showcased the engagement of event participants and a high level of enthusiasm for continued learning opportunities and practical application of concepts.
Leadership attending the training expressed excitement at how well our team members engaged with the content. During the plus/delta conversation at the end of the training, the group discussed numerous exciting ideas on how developers and architects could utilize AI and the demonstrated development techniques in current and upcoming projects.