Microsoft AI Agent Architecture in 2026: A Decision Framework for Copilot Studio, Foundry, Agent Framework, and Logic Apps

Stop Picking AI Frameworks Before You Answer This One Question

If you're building AI agents on Azure, you've been here: a kickoff meeting where someone asks "what framework should we use?" and the next 90 minutes becomes a debate between Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, Copilot Studio, Foundry, and Logic Apps — before anyone has agreed on what the agent actually needs to do.

That is the wrong sequence. And it's why so many Azure AI projects start with the most sophisticated-sounding option and spend the next three months fighting the wrong abstraction.

The Microsoft ecosystem gives you more agent architecture flexibility than any other cloud provider. Conversational or headless. Low-code or pro-code. M365-native or Azure-native. That flexibility is a genuine advantage — but only if you read the decision tree in the right order.

This post walks through that tree. By the end you'll have a repeatable framework for choosing the right architecture the first time, plus a list of SDK retirement dates you need to know before you commit.