The model swap workshop
Conference Context
- Date/time: 2026-06-29 · 11:05am-12:05pm
- Track/room: Workshops Day 1 · Track 4
- Speaker(s): Pamela Fox, Arun Sekhar
- Session type/status: workshop · confirmed
- Track: Workshops Day 1
- Room: Track 4
- Session type: workshop
- Status: confirmed
Session Description
Frontier labs are releasing new models constantly, and it is hard to know when “better” is better enough to justify touching a working system. On top of that, “just swap the model” often turns into real work because providers expose different APIs and different expectations around tools and structured outputs. The model swap workshop is a hands-on bake-off across frontier LLMs. We will run the same scenarios using multiple models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Kimi, and more) and compare results side by side for agentic tool use, structured outputs, and multimodal tasks. Swapping models is not just changing a model name. In this workshop, you will actually do the swaps, including moving between OpenAI-style Responses APIs and Anthropic-style Messages APIs, then see what breaks and what needs to change in your prompts, tool definitions, and JSON strategies. We will finish by running a small eval suite so you can quantify tradeoffs instead of relying on vibes. We will provide the Microsoft Foundry environment for access to the models, no account needed.
Media Evidence
Running AI Application in Minutes w/ AI Templates: Gabriela de Queiroz, Pamela Fox, Harald Kirschner (speaker-match related prior/adjacent AI Engineer video; captions: English auto-captions).
- Source video:
youtube-1t-9-s1brcg - Slide deck: Dense Slides: Running AI Application in Minutes w/ AI Templates: Gabriela de Queiroz, Pamela Fox, Harald Kirschner — 50 visible slide image(s); 50 HTML recreation(s).
- Additional slide evidence: Slides: Running AI Application in Minutes w/ AI Templates: Gabriela de Queiroz, Pamela Fox, Harald Kirschner, Reconstructed Slides: Running AI Application in Minutes w/ AI Templates: Gabriela de Queiroz, Pamela Fox, Harald Kirschner
- Slide-derived themes for
youtube-1t-9-s1brcg: azure, proxy, templates, microsoft, startups, founders, startup, faster.

Evidence Graph
This evidence graph is generated from currently linked source material: official schedule text, related video pages, cached transcripts, visible slide text, dense/reconstructed slide pages, and AI slide-classification audits.
Media Signals
youtube-1t-9-s1brcg— 6 slide-derived text signals- Slide-derived themes for
youtube-1t-9-s1brcg: azure, proxy, templates, microsoft, startups, founders, startup, faster. - Evidence links for
youtube-1t-9-s1brcg: youtube 1t 9 s1brcg, youtube 1t 9 s1brcg slides, youtube 1t 9 s1brcg dense slides, youtube 1t 9 s1brcg reconstructed slides
Agent Reading Notes
Use these signals to refine the synopsis, topic links, people/company context, and method notes. If a source is a related external video rather than an exact official recording, keep it framed as supporting evidence.
Transcript Status
Related video transcript availability: English auto-captions. Treat this as supporting context, not a recording of this exact scheduled session unless later confirmed. Not fetched yet.
People
Supporting Slides
- youtube 1t 9 s1brcg slides — extracted from the related public AI Engineer video.
Slide Evidence
- Slide-only cropped deck: youtube 1t 9 s1brcg dense slides (50 viable slide images).
- Related slide/OCR pages:
- youtube 1t 9 s1brcg dense slides
- youtube 1t 9 s1brcg reconstructed slides
- youtube 1t 9 s1brcg slides
- Slide-derived terms:
azure,microsoft,github,startups,account,workshop,boars,founders,instructions,open,mode,gene,they,engineer,signin,login,pass,will
Synthesis
Synthesized Breakdown
The model swap workshop ## Conference Context - Date/time: 2026-06-29 · 11:05am-12:05pm - Track/room: Workshops Day 1 · Track 4 - Speaker(s): Pamela Fox, Arun Sekhar - Session type/status: workshop · confirmed - Track: Workshops Day 1 - Room: Track 4 - Session type: workshop - Status: confirmed ## Session Description Frontier labs are releasing new models constantly, and it is hard to know when “better” is better enough to justify touching a working system. On top of that, “just swap the model” often turns into real work because providers expose different APIs and different expectations around tools and structured outputs. The model swap workshop is a hands-on bake-off across frontier LLMs. We will run the same scenarios using multiple models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Kimi, and more) and compare results side by side for agentic tool use, structured outputs, and multimodal tasks.
Speaker And Company Context
- Pamela Fox — Principal Cloud Advocate at Microsoft.
- Arun Sekhar — Principal Product Manager for AI Developer Experience at Microsoft.
Topics Covered
Derived Links And Source Material
- youtube 1t 9 s1brcg — related YouTube source page.
- youtube 1t 9 s1brcg slides — slide evidence.
- youtube 1t 9 s1brcg reconstructed slides — slide evidence.
- youtube 1t 9 s1brcg dense slides — slide evidence.
Novel Concepts / Clever Methods
- No highlighted novel concept has been detected yet.
Evidence Boundary
This synthesis is based on the official schedule and linked source pages. It should be revisited when exact session recordings or transcript-backed secondary sources are available.