Azure AI Search is a scalable search service that indexes heterogeneous content and enables retrieval through APIs, applications, and AI agents. It integrates with Azure OpenAI, AI Foundry, and Azure Machine Learning, and supports extensible architectures for third-party and open-source models.
Required Azure Role
Either one of these built-in roles (or a custom role with equivalent permissions):
- Owner — full access including role assignments
- Contributor — manage resources (no role assignments)
If role assignment is needed with Contributor, also grant User Access Administrator.
Azure Administration Tools / Interface
This guide uses the Azure Portal and a manual creation process.
Create and Manage Steps (Azure Portal)
- Go to Azure AI Foundry or search for Azure AI Search. Click Create, then set the service name and link it to the correct resource group.
Select a Pricing tier based on actual requirements. Recommendation: start with Basic and upgrade as needed; each tier has specific limits.
- Choose the Scale (replicas and partitions) to meet expected read/write performance. Defaults are fine to start and can be revisited later.
- Configure Networking. Where possible, prefer a Private endpoint in line with the customer’s policy.
- Tags are optional. Proceed to Review + create, review settings, then click Create.
