{"id":25560,"date":"2026-10-01T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/insidetrack\/blog\/?p=25560"},"modified":"2026-09-30T16:23:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T23:23:45","slug":"rebuilding-our-microsoft-foundry-labs-site-with-a-three-people-build-team-and-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/insidetrack\/blog\/rebuilding-our-microsoft-foundry-labs-site-with-a-three-people-build-team-and-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebuilding our Microsoft Foundry Labs site with a three-people build team and AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With AI innovation moving so quickly, it can feel difficult to stay on top of everything that\u2019s happening, including the projects and collaborations, the successes and failures, and \u201ca-ha\u201d breakthrough moments<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across Microsoft, our researchers, engineers, and product teams are building new models, agent frameworks, benchmarks, applications, and research projects at a steady pace. But even when innovative work exists, it has limited impact if people can\u2019t find it, understand it, or put it to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That challenge inspired the transformation of our Microsoft Foundry Labs<\/a> website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally launched as a simple online catalog of AI innovations across Microsoft, Foundry Labs gave teams a place to showcase their research projects, models, and experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as the volume of innovations increased, the experience became difficult to navigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, principal product manager Saumil Shrivastava brought together a small cross-functional team of three\u2014a product manager, a marketer, and an engineer\u2014to rebuild the site. Along the way, they discovered something: Modern AI tools could fundamentally change how digital products are designed, prototyped, and delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team used AI throughout the development process to move from concept to production in approximately three months. The result was a new Foundry Labs experience that helps customers discover innovations across Microsoft while serving as an example of AI-assisted product development in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The whole purpose of Foundry Labs is to bridge the gap between Microsoft’s latest AI innovations and the people building with them, turning breakthroughs into tools you can explore, test, and build with today.”<\/p>\nGulsimo Osimi, technical program manager, Microsoft Foundry<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Solving the discoverability problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The mission of Foundry Labs has remained consistent since its creation: Provide a destination where our teams can showcase AI innovations and help people learn about emerging technologies. These innovations come from organizations including Microsoft Research<\/a>, Microsoft AI<\/a>, Microsoft Planetary Computer<\/a>, and other Microsoft teams and collaborators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the original site had been designed when the catalog was much smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When we had 20 innovations, it was pretty reasonable to scroll and click on each innovation,” says Gulsimo Osimi, a technical program manager at Microsoft and member of the three-person site build team, alongside Pratyansh Agrawal, a software engineer, and Patrick Widjaja, a senior product marketing manager. “As the number of projects grew, we wanted the user experience to provide the option to filter by innovation, domains, status, capability, or simply browse with images that help visualize what the innovation is about.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge was compounded by the pace of AI innovation itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So many teams have lots of AI innovation happening, and staying on top of it is really hard,” Osimi says. “The whole purpose of Foundry Labs is to bridge the gap between Microsoft’s latest AI innovations and the people building with them, turning breakthroughs and experiments into tools you can explore, test, and build with today.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From traditional specs to a working prototype<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The project began with a traditional product management process. Shrivastava set the broader Foundry Labs product vision and strategy, and Osimi translated that direction into a detailed, 32-page specification for the new site experience. But as the document grew, the team realized it wasn\u2019t the ideal way to communicate the vision. Osimi began experimenting with AI-assisted prototyping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using AI development tools, Osimi rapidly transformed product concepts into interactive experiences. The process became highly iterative: Specification informed prototype development, and the prototype informed revisions to the specs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting prototype helped stakeholders understand the vision much more quickly than a document alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the prototype gained visibility, the team presented it at a CoreAI<\/a> demo fair, where it attracted attention from stakeholders and leadership. That validation helped secure support from engineering and marketing partners, accelerating the site rebuild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re able to take the project from a sketch to a prototype and then to a full website in only a month.\u201d<\/p>\nPatrick Widjaja, senior product marketing manager, Microsoft Foundry<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Three people, multiple disciplines, supported by AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A key aspect of the project was its deliberately small team. The initiative brought together expertise from product, marketing, and engineering, with AI tools helping each discipline contribute in new ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shrivastava created the broader strategy and brought together the cross-functional team. Osimi led detailed product requirements, user experience design, and AI-assisted prototyping; Widjaja focused on brand identity, community experiences, content strategy, and site storytelling; and Agrawal transformed the prototype into a production-ready experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe used AI extensively in different ways,\u201d Widjaja says. \u201cGulsimo, from the product side, used it to prototype the website, and I used it to make all of the branding, design, copy, and images. We were able to take the project from a sketch to a prototype and then to a full website in only a month.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team’s approach highlighted how AI could support different stages of the development lifecycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building an AI-assisted development workflow<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The development process followed a repeatable pattern: receive intent, inspect the codebase, plan changes, create isolated branches, implement functionality, validate outcomes, and merge approved work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cMicrosoft is producing extraordinary AI innovation across research and product teams, but breakthroughs create value only when customers can discover, understand, and put them to use. Our strategy for Foundry Labs is to create a shared path from emerging innovation to real-world impact\u2014giving teams a way to bring promising work forward, learn from customer engagement, and use those insights to accelerate the journey from research into practical use.\u201d<\/p>\nSaumil Shrivastava, principal product manager, Microsoft Foundry<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

AI-assisted workflows were used to help deliver features across the site, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n