Azure AI & App Innovation Updates - June 2026

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By Lionel Gurret.

Introduction

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This article lists Azure updates for June 2026.

Updates

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AI + machine learning

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Toolboxes in Microsoft Foundry
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Databricks native read access to Microsoft OneLake
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Databricks natively storing data in Microsoft OneLake
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Voice sync for avatar support in Voice Live API in Microsoft Foundry
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Tool search in Microsoft Foundry toolboxes
• [In preview]: Public Preview: APIM Support for Foundry Models in Azure AI Search
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure SQL as a knowledge source in Foundry IQ
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Private Connectivity for Azure AI Search and Foundry Knowledge Bases
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Fabric IQ Ontology Knowledge Source in Microsoft Foundry IQ
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Microsoft Foundry IQ
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Content Understanding chunking and image verbalization in Azure AI Search
• [In preview]: Public Preview: MAI-Voice-2 in Microsoft Foundry
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Text Analytics for Health NextGen Playground in Azure AI Language
• [In preview]: Public Preview: User feedback logging in Microsoft Foundry
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Self-serve custom photo avatar creation in Microsoft Foundry
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Agent-to-agent (A2A) support for Prompt agents and Hosted agents in Foundry
• [Launched]: Public Preview: Conversational PII NextGen Playground in Microsoft Foundry
• [Launched]: Public Preview: TextPII NextGen Playground updates in Microsoft Foundry
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Observability developer experience in Azure Developer CLI (azd)
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Domain filter for specialized model discovery in Foundry model catalog
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Microsoft Foundry for Visual Studio Code (June Build 2026 refresh)
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Evaluations with Intelligent Trace Sampling
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Custom Voice portal experience in Microsoft Foundry
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Rubric evaluator in Microsoft Foundry
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Code-first observability for Foundry Agents in VS Code
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Unified Text Translation API in Azure AI Translator
• [Launched]: Global PTU Reservations Are Now Region-Agnostic
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Policy Coverage for Model Router in Foundry Models
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Voice Live integration with Microsoft Foundry Agent Service
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Databricks workspace-wide Genie MCP for Microsoft Copilot Studio
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Databricks Lakebase branching with GitHub Copilot agent mode
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Improved PDF batch document translation in Azure AI Translator
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Image file translation for batch document translation in Azure AI Translator
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Image translation inside Office documents for batch document translation
• [Launched]: Generally Available: OneLake catalog integration for Azure AI Search knowledge sources
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Managed virtual network for evaluations in Microsoft Foundry
• [Launched]: Generally Available: LLM Speech API in Azure AI Speech
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Foundry Memory preview refresh
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Purview admin access auditing for sensitivity-labeled content in Azure AI Search
• [Launched]: Public Preview: Hosted Agents in Microsoft Foundry Agent Service
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Purview sensitivity labels in Azure AI Search knowledge sources
• [In preview]: Public Preview: MAI-Transcribe-1.5 in Microsoft Foundry model catalog
• [In preview]: Public Preview: MAI-Image-2.5 in Microsoft Foundry model catalog
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Serverless indexers in Azure AI Search
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Neural HD voice update (HDv2.5) in Azure AI Speech
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Toolbox connectors and triggers in Microsoft Foundry
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Custom Avatar and Custom Video portal in Microsoft Foundry
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Trace Replay and trace visualizations for Foundry agents
• [In preview]: Public Preview: MCP Server Knowledge Source in Microsoft Foundry IQ
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Incremental SharePoint permissions sync for Azure AI Search and Foundry IQ
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Content Understanding NextGen in Microsoft Foundry
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Document translation for image files (synchronous, single document)
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure AI Translator SDKs for the latest text translation API
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Adaptive custom translation in the Azure AI Foundry NextGen playground
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Photo Avatar standard and custom in Azure AI Speech
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Microsoft Purview sensitivity label auditing in Azure AI Search
• [In preview]: Public Preview: SharePoint in Microsoft 365 indexer supports ASPX pages and Lists
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Content Understanding extractionMode for documents
• [Launched]: Generally Available: GenAI prompt skill and chat completion in Azure AI Search knowledge sources
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Managed identity for Foundry billing calls from Azure AI Search
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Image serving in Foundry IQ knowledge bases
• [In preview]: Public Preview: OneLake Catalog integration for Foundry IQ Knowledge Sources
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Region-agnostic reservations for Global PTU in Microsoft Foundry
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Speech SDK 1.50 for Azure AI Speech
• [In preview]: Public Preview: CLI and SDK support for Deployment Templates
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Deployment Templates support packaging deployment configurations in registries for curated deployment
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Benchmark evaluations for fine-tuned models in Microsoft Foundry

Containers

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Red Hat OpenShift in Belgium Central
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager for Arc-enabled clusters
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Confidential Compute support on Azure Container Apps
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Monitor HTTP traffic in Azure Container Apps
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Additional support for OpenTelemetry destinations (New Relic, Dynatrace, Elastic)
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Override Scale Rules in Azure Functions on Azure Container Apps
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Container Apps Sandboxes

DevOps

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Log Analytics Summary Rules experience
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Ingestion Volume Change dashboard in Metrics Usage Insights
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Ingest OTLP signals into Azure Monitor with the OpenTelemetry Collector
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Monitor Service Level Indicators (SLI)
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Simple log alerts in Azure Monitor
• [Launched]: Generally Available: OpenTelemetry Metrics, Visualizations, and Enhanced Monitoring in Azure Monitor for Azure VMs and Arc Servers
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Dynamic threshold for Log search alerts

Compute

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: New project templates and template gallery for Azure Functions in VS Code
• [Launched]: Announcing: Confidential Live Migration for Intel TDX confidential VMs in Azure
• [In preview]: Preview: Azure Cobalt 200 Arm-based Dpsv7, Dplsv7, Epsv7, Mpsv4, and Lpsv5-series Virtual Machines
• [In preview]: Public preview: Azure Linux 4.0 for Azure Virtual Machines and VM Scale Sets
• [Launched]: Azure Container Linux (ACL) now generally available on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• [Private Preview]: Private Preview: Storage optimized Lasv5 and Laosv5 Azure VM series
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Rolling updates in Flex Consumption
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Anyscale on Azure
• [Launched]: Generally available: Generally available: Managed system node pools in AKS Automatic
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Go language support on Azure Functions
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Built-in Grafana dashboards for Azure Functions
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Copilot-assisted coding & agent skills to build, deploy, and run Azure Functions faster in VS Code, CLI, and azd
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Serverless agents runtime for Azure Functions
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Functions now includes managed connectors to integrate with 1400+ of your favorite systems
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Functions now supports hosting MCP Apps
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Functions Support for Node.js 24

Networking

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Application Gateway for Containers – Inference gateway
• [Launched]: Generally Available: ICMP Support for Azure Standard V2 NAT Gateway

Security

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• [Launched]: Retirement: Azure VPN Client for Linux (Preview) will be retired on August 31, 2026

Storage

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Client-side data integrity protections in Azure Blob Storage
• [In preview]: Generally Available: Azure NetApp Files migration assistant
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Secure, Modern Access to Azure Files on macOS with MS Entra ID
• [Launched]: Generally Available: File share centric management model (Microsoft.FileShares) for Azure Files

Azure Blueprints

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• Retirement: Retirement: Migrate from Azure Blueprints by January 31, 2027

Management and governance

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Migrate – GitHub Copilot Modernization integration for at scale code assessments
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Site Recovery support for Linux Azure VMs with NVMe disk controllers.
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Files assessments are now available worldwide using Azure Migrate
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Snapshot backup for SQL Server in Azure VMs

Batch

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• Retirement: Retirement: Av2-series, F-series, Fs-series, Fsv2-series, G-series, Gs-series, and Lsv2-series Virtual Machines for Azure Batch pools
• Retirement: Retirement: D-series, Ds-series, Dv2-series, Dsv2-series, and Ls-series Virtual Machines for Azure Batch pools

Storage Accounts

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• [Launched]: Retirement: GPv1 and Legacy Blob storage account creation

Databases

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: SQL MCP Server
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Microsoft Entra server principals on Azure SQL Database
• [Launched]: Generally Available: PostgreSQL Hub for Azure Developers
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Maintenance control for Azure Database for PostgreSQL - reschedule, apply on demand, view and download
• [In preview]: Public Preview: AI pipelines in Azure HorizonDB
• [Launched]: General Availability: Backup your ledger files for audit with Azure confidential ledger’s new tool
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server: DuckDB extension
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Advanced full-text search in Azure DocumentDB
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Agent kit for Azure Cosmos DB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure SQL updates for early-June
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Backup for Cosmos DB
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Oracle schema conversion to Azure PostgreSQL in Visual Studio Code
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Pre-upgrade validation checks for Azure Database for PostgreSQL
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Microsoft Defender security assessments for Azure Database for PostgreSQL
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Database PostgreSQL - Flexible Server cross-tenant customer-managed keys
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server pg_ivm extension
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Database for MySQL now available in new regions and expanded availability zones
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server self-service quota management experience
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure SQL updates for June
• [Launched]: Generally Available: GitHub Copilot integration in Schema Designer for the MSSQL extension
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Data API builder with built-in GitHub Copilot in MSSQL extension
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure SQL Database provisioning in the MSSQL extension
• [In preview]: Public Preview: MCP toolkit for Azure DocumentDB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: BM25 full-text search in Azure HorizonDB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Advanced filtering for DiskANN vector search in Azure HorizonDB
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure HorizonDB Agentic Advisor Solution Accelerator
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure HorizonDB
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure DocumentDB instant free tier clusters
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure DocumentDB Migration Extension in Visual Studio Code
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Change streams (multi-shard) in Azure DocumentDB
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Graceful failover with zero data loss guarantee
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Service-managed failover in Azure DocumentDB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Relational Database to Azure Cosmos DB NoSQL Migration Assistant
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Cosmos DB distributed transactions
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Per-partition automatic failover for Azure Cosmos DB
• [Launched]: Generally Available: MCP Toolkit for Azure Cosmos DB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Introducing AI Assistant in the Azure Cosmos DB extension for Visual Studio Code
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Change partition keys in Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL API
• [In preview]: Public Preview: New Azure Cosmos DB cost estimator
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Cosmos DB all versions and deletes change feed mode
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Cosmos DB global secondary indexes
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Agentic Retrieval Toolkit for Azure Cosmos DB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Semantic reranker in Azure Cosmos DB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Agent Memory Toolkit for Azure Cosmos DB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Safe key rotation for Azure Cosmos DB
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Integrated embeddings for Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL
• [In preview]: Public Preview: OmniVec, an open-source embedding toolkit for Azure
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Cosmos DB Linux emulator (vNext)

Services

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• Retirement: Retirement: Azure Load Balancer Inbound NAT rule version 1 for Azure VMSS (aka Inbound NAT Pools)

Internet of Things

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• Retirement: Retirement: Azure Synapse Link for Azure Cosmos DB NoSQL
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Sphere OS version 26.06 is now available

Features

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Agent mode for GitHub Copilot in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure NC RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition v6 Series Virtual Machines
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Premium SSD v2 disks now support non-zonal Azure Virtual Machines
• [Launched]: Private Preview: Guest RDMA on Azure Boost
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Automatic OS Image Upgrades for VMSS Flex
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Github Copilot modernization
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Microsoft Defender for Cloud support for Azure Container Apps (Serverless Containers Posture)

Hybrid + multicloud

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Microsoft Foundry agent security capabilities in Microsoft Defender for Cloud are transitioning to a Microsoft Agent 365 license

Azure Managed Redis

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Managed Redis now supports Entra ID based RBAC for data management

Microsoft Build

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Microsoft Discovery
• [Launched]: Private Preview: multiparty analytics with Azure Confidential Clean Rooms

Management

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Infrastructure Resiliency Manager

Integration

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure API Management introduces a Unified Model API for multi-model AI applications.
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure API Management Premium v2 and Standard v2 now support wildcard custom hostnames.
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Event Grid - MQTT v5 Subscription Identifier
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Logic Apps now enables developers to invoke Microsoft Foundry Agents directly from workflows.
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Knowledge as a Service with Azure Logic Apps.
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Logic Apps Automation SKU for agentic business process automation.
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure API Center now provides a data plane MCP server for enterprise-wide discovery of APIs and AI assets.
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure API Center now supports agent registration, agent assessment, and Git-based synchronization.
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure API Management Premium v2 now supports multiple custom domains
• [Launched]: Public Preview: Azure API Management now supports token metrics for all token types
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure API Management now supports content safety controls for MCP and A2A APIs.
• [In preview]: Public preview: Connector Namespace
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Logic Apps MCP Server.
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Logic Apps Codeful Workflows with Logic Apps Standard SDK.
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure API Management now supports AI gateway capabilities for Anthropic and Vertex AI models.
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure API Management workspaces now support the built-in gateway
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure API Management adds support for Agent-to-Agent (A2A) APIs

Azure VMware Solution

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• [Launched]: Retirement: Azure VMware Solution AV36 node End of Support on September 30, 2027

Sources

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https://azure.microsoft.com/ Microsoft Dev Blog Azure Website