The Shift: Your open questions about agents, honest discussions

As AI agents become more capable—and more autonomous—one question rises fast: How do we draw agentic borders? For many organizations, this is also a sovereignty question: what stays in-country, who can access it, and how do you enforce policy across systems and regions? In this episode of The Shift Podcast: Agentic Edition, leaders from Microsoft Azure explore the evolving boundaries between agent...

As AI agents move from experimentation into real-world operations, many IT leaders are asking a new kind of workforce question: Should your IT team hire agents? In this episode of The Shift Podcast: Agentic Edition, members of the Microsoft Azure team explore how agentic AI is beginning to reshape IT operations, cloud management, and the future of technical work. Agents are emerging as powerful co...

Postgres has long been a favorite of developers—but is it also the right foundation for the next generation of AI applications and agentic systems ? In this episode of The Shift Podcast: Agentic Edition , members of the Microsoft Azure Database team unpack a question we’re hearing more frequently as organizations build AI-driven applications: Is Postgres the wave of the future? The conversation ex...

For AI agents to move from reasoning to action, they need more than text alone. But what “senses” actually matter? In this episode of The Shift Podcast: Agentic Edition , members of the Microsoft Foundry team discuss how multimodal inputs —such as text, vision, and speech—shape how agents perceive and interact with the world. The conversation explores what’s practical today, rather than assuming f...

As retrieval augmented generation (RAG) matures, teams are asking a new question: Is context engineering becoming more important than RAG itself? In this episode of The Shift Podcast: Agentic Edition , members of the Microsoft Foundry team explore how context management , retrieval pipelines , and knowledge integration influence the quality of AI responses. The discussion doesn’t dismiss RAG—but e...

As teams build AI agents, many discover a surprising requirement along the way: Yes—your agent still needs a database. In this episode of The Shift Podcast: Agentic Edition , members of the Microsoft Azure Database team discuss why databases remain a core part of agentic application architectures. The conversation explores how AI apps and agents place different demands on databases compared to tra...

Single agents can be useful—but many real-world applications rely on multiple agents working together . So how does that actually work? In this episode of The Shift Podcast: Agentic Edition , members of the Microsoft Foundry team explore how multi‑agent systems are designed, coordinated, and evaluated. The discussion breaks down what “working together” means in practice—without assuming agents beh...

As AI agents take on more responsibility, one foundational question keeps surfacing: Are my agents hunting for data? In this episode of The Shift Podcast: Agentic Edition , members of the Microsoft Fabric team explore how data access, organization, and governance directly affect how agents function in real-world systems. Rather than focusing on algorithms alone, the discussion centers on the data...

For everyone looking to stay ahead of agentic change, this season of The Shift explores our rapidly evolving world from a full stack perspective, connecting technical professionals to the teams and tools that are here to help. Each week we create space for top questions from the community, bringing you unscripted conversations about critical cloud, data and AI concepts, so we can all level up toge...

AI technologies are some of the most sophisticated and powerful we’ve seen in our lifetimes. With data at the center, this transformative shift brings both the potential to solve complex problems and new challenges around managing sensitive information. Join us for a deep dive into innovative strategies that will reshape how you think about data governance in the age of AI. Stefaan Verhulst, PhD,...

Scott Hanselman, VP of Developer Community at Microsoft, joins the pod to offer his unique perspective on the evolution of technology, share what he heard from developers at Microsoft Build 2025, and discuss the critical role of human agency in a world of AI agents. Scott and Susan explore some of the challenges and opportunities presented by AI-powered automation, emphasizing the importance of AI...

Water is fundamental to our existence, but only a tiny fraction of fresh water on Earth is available to sustain life. How can we become better stewards of this precious resource? In this episode, Susan speaks with Jairo Trad, CEO & Co-Founder of Kilimo, a climate tech company based in Argentina, about how he and his team are using data, AI, and cloud technology to help farmers optimize water u...

From cave painters to digital creators, artists continually discover new ways to express themselves and connect. That connection is so important, because some people find art intimidating. And, let’s face it, a lot of people feel the same way about AI. In this episode, Alain Brusch, Global Head of Digital Platforms at Art Basel, shares how this premier international art fair is using cloud and AI...

Maribel Lopez, Founder of Lopez Research, is one of the people you most want in your corner as a technology leader. She’s a trusted advisor to senior executives from startups to the largest global businesses, and has deep expertise in AI, cybersecurity, and customer experience transformation. But beyond her bonafides, Maribel is clear-eyed and practical about technology change, what leaders need t...

Great minds think alike—or do they? In this episode, Susan speaks with Hiren Shukla, Global Neurodiversity and Inclusive Value Leader, Ernst & Young LLP, about how neurodiversity—the idea that there is no single “right” way for the brain to function—is a source of compressed innovation, especially as generative AI expands the ways we interact with technology. Hiren discusses the mission of the...

Basketball is life. And like life, it’s fast, fluid, and hard to measure. It’s about movement, split-second decisions, team dynamics, fan engagement and running a great business. In this episode, Susan talks with Charlie Rohlf about how his early days as a student manager for the legendary “Coach K” and his background in computer vision prepared him for his current role as Vice President, Stats Te...

Would it surprise you that some of the most impressive generative AI innovations are happening in older, larger, highly regulated industries such as financial services? Cristina Pieretti, GM of digital insights at Moody's, shares how her team-built Research Assistant, a first-of-its-kind search and analytical tool powered by generative AI. Since its launch in December 2023, Research Assistant is t...

Most of us think of generative AI in the context of text or image generation, but it’s also a powerful tool for scientific discovery. In this episode, Susan Etlinger speaks with Ade Famoti, a senior leader on the Microsoft Research Accelerator team, about what he calls “AI’s physics moment,” and why he believes generative AI feels fundamentally different from past platform shifts. Ade shares examp...

You’ve heard of data-driven products, data-driven services and data-driven business models, but data.org is pioneering an entirely new field: data for social impact. In the premiere episode of Leading the Shift , guest Perry Hewitt, Chief Marketing and Product Officer at data.org, shares how the organization is taking data and AI and applying it to the world’s most challenging problems. Perry shar...

“I like to think about proprietary data as an organization’s collective intelligence,” says Teresa Tung, Global Lead of Data Capability at Accenture. Teresa is a prolific inventor, holding over 225 patents and applications, and she leads the vision and strategy that ensures that Accenture is prepared for ever-changing data advancements. In this episode, Susan and Teresa discuss the changing nature...

“Generative AI has done a ton for us. But where I'm also really interested is how it can help us bring together new sources of data that weren't able to be brought together before,” says Shirli Zelcer, Chief Data and Technology Officer at dentsu. Shirli shares her career journey from statistician to C-suite executive, and how it parallels the evolution of data and analytics from back-office practi...

“In many ways, the future of AI is how it’s going to empower people to be even more creative and even more expressive,” says Robby Ingebretsen, Founder and Creative Director of Pixel Lab. In this episode, Susan and Robby discuss the evolution of technology in the music industry—from Robby’s father’s early work in digital sound to the invention of the synthesizer—and how it parallels the AI platfor...

The AI platform shift brings immense opportunity, but the road to success isn’t always clear. On "Leading the Shift," a new podcast from Microsoft Azure, we'll talk to people doing just that—leading the platform shift in organizations of all kinds to learn with them along the way. Guests share personal experiences and pragmatic advice for navigating first-of-their-kind challenges and delivering me...