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As an AI native engineer, your journey starts with model choice. But with 10K+ models in Microsoft Foundry, 2M+ open-source model in Hugging Face, and new model releases every day, how do you make informed decisions? With Model Mondays, we have three resources to help you go from awareness to action to adoption.
- Model Mondays livestream - every Monday at 1:30pm EST with news, tech spotlights & customer stories
- Foundry Friday AMA - every Monday at 1:30pm EST with demos, Q&A featuring subject matter experts
- Models For Beginners - curriculum planned for release in 2026.
Build your Model IQ one week at a time - and go from scenario to solution by learning model fundamentals, understanding model selection, exploring model customization, and building trustworthy AI solutions with end-to-end observability. Join us by taking two actions today:
- Join the Discord - and follow the #model-mondays channel for regular updates!
- Register for the Livestream - and watch for new updates to the schedule in 2026
In Season 3, we are putting the tech spotlight on Microsoft Foundry and bringing in product group leads and subject matter experts to talk about the unified platform and tech stack that powers the app and agent factory! Season 3 is currently planned for a 16-episode arc going from Dec 2025 to Apr 2026. In addition to tech spotlights, watch for new customer stories and new segments including Study Corner and Partner Spotlights.
| Ep | Livestream | AMA | Tech Spotlight | Customer Story | Host |
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| 01 | Dec 01 | Dec 05 | Model Router | Adobe | Nitya |
| 02 | Dec 08 | Dec 12 | Red Teaming | Ada | Nitya |
| 03 | Dec 15 | Dec 19 | Foundry Local | eClinicalWorks | Lee |
| ✨✨✨ | ✨✨✨ | FESTIVE HOLIDAY | ✨✨✨✨✨✨ | ✨✨✨✨✨✨ | |
| 04 | Jan 12 | Jan 16 | Microsoft Agent Framework | InWorld.AI | Korey |
| 05 | Jan 19 | Jan 23 | US HOLIDAY | ✨✨✨✨✨✨ | ✨✨✨✨✨✨ |
| 06 | Jan 26 | Jan 30 | Fine Tuning & Responses API | Relativity | Bethany |
| 07 | Feb 02 | Feb 06 | Synthetic Data Generation | Bethany | |
| 08 | Feb 09 | Feb 13 | Next-Gen UI Experiences | Nitya | |
| 09 | Feb 16 | Feb 20 | Research Models | Nitya | |
| 10 | Feb 23 | Feb 27 | Microsoft Foundry Agents | Carlotta | |
| 11 | Mar 02 | Mar 06 | Foundry Control Plane | Nitya | |
| 12 | Mar 09 | Mar 13 | AI Developer Experience | April | |
| 13 | Mar 16 | Mar 20 | Foundry IQ | Carlotta | |
| 14 | Mar 23 | Mar 27 | Foundry Tools | (Lee/Carlotta) | |
| 15 | Mar 30 | Apr 03 | Agent 365 & Identity | Korey | |
| 16 | Apr 06 | Apr 10 | GitHub Agentic Workflows | Korey | |
With 21 livestream episodes and 31 AMA sessions completed, we now have a well-defined format that has resonated with AI native engineers and decision-makers alike. As we began planning Season 3, we thought about how we could use the platform to support one additional audience: learners and partners. In 2026, look for new segments like Partner Spotlights featuring model providers, This Week In Hugging Face spotlighting open-source models, and Study Corner showcasing self-guided labs and curricula for skilling.
Did you know Microsoft Foundry gives you access to 10K+ open-source models through the Hugging Face Collection? Starting in Feb 2026, look for a weekly update on what's trending in Hugging Face where we feature 3 models and give you some intuition for what makes them notable for AI devs.
- Visit this page to learn more & view shared models
- Track this tag for a weekly blog post & deep-dive.
So many models - so how do you actually learn how to do model selection right? The best way is to work with existing tools and platforms to solve a real-world problem. You learn more by doing!
What if we put the "fun" back into Model Fundamentals? Model Mondays joined forces with the M365 Advocacy team to try an interesting experiment at Microsoft Ignite. Stay tuned for a special segment on Model Mondays Season 3 where we share insights from the contest, and celebrate our winners!
- Read The Contest Rules - to understand requirements
- Read The Contest Blog - to learn the tasks & get started
- RSVP to Model Mondays - for a featured celebration in December.
Season 2 kicked off on Jun 16, 2025 and will run through Sep 2025. =Use the Register links to get reminders for upcoming events, and visit the Replay and Recap links to revisit past episodes and AMAs. Watch the complete playlist of all series of Model Mondays
| Episode | Topic | Monday Livestream | Friday AMA | Slides | Blog |
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| S2:E01 | Advanced Reasoning |  |
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| S2:E02 | Model Context Protocol |  |
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| S2:E03 | SLMs and Reasoning |  |
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| S2:E04 | AI & Dev Experience |  |
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| S2:E05 | Fine-Tuning & Distillation |  |
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| S2:E06 | Research & Innovation |  |
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| S2:E07 | AI-Assisted Azure Dev |  |
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| S2:E08 | On-Device & Local AI |  |
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| S2:E09 | AI Agents |  |
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| S2:E10 | Document Processing |  |
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| S2:E11 | AI Foundry Speech Playground |  |
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| S2:E12 | Models & Observability |  |
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| S2:E13 | Open-Source Models (Hugging Face) |  |
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Want to get more details about each session? Check out the Season 2 page for more information on each session including speakers, description and links to recaps and slides.
Our pilot season featured 8 episodes covering models (green badges) and tools (magenta badges) in Azure AI Foundry. Visit the Season 1 page for details or click the episode specific badge below to go directly to the replay.
| Episode | Video | Blog | Slides | AMA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E01 · GitHub Models | Play |
GitHub Models | Mar 14 | |
| E02 · Reasoning Models | Play |
OpenAI, DeepSeek | Mar 21 | |
| E03 · Search + Retrieval | Play |
Cohere Rerank | Mar 28 | |
| E04 · Visual + Generative | Play |
Stable Diffusion | Apr 04 | |
| E05 · Fine-Tuning | Play |
Mistral | Apr 11 | |
| E06 · Local AI Development | Play |
AI Toolkit (AITK) | Apr 18 | |
| E07 · Open Source & AI | Play |
Llama 4 (Meta) | Apr 25 | |
| E08 · Forecasting Models | Play |
Nixtla TimeGEN | - | May 02 |
Great devs don't build alone! In a fast-pased developer ecosystem, there's no time to hunt for help. That's why we have the Azure AI Developer Community. Join us today and let's journey together!
- Join the Discord - for real-time chats, events & learning
- Explore the Forum - for AMA recaps, Q&A, and help!
