---
title: "Azure OpenAI"
description: "Integrate Azure OpenAI with Agency Swarm to ensure secure data processing and enhanced privacy."
icon: "microsoft"
---

Many organizations prioritize data privacy and are cautious about sharing their data with any third-parties. By leveraging Azure OpenAI, you can ensure that your data is processed only within your own secure Azure environment, and not even shared with OpenAI itself.

<Info>
Running OpenAI models on Azure is the same as deploying your own open source model on any other cloud provider.
</Info>

## Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

1. Create an Azure Account with an active subscription. [Create an account here](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/).
2. Get approved access to the OpenAI Service on Azure.
3. Create an Azure OpenAI resource in [one of the available regions](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/openai/concepts/models#assistants-preview) and deploy a model to it.
4. Obtain the endpoint URL and API key for the OpenAI resource.

## Setting Up Azure OpenAI with Agency Swarm

<Steps>
<Step title="Configure the Azure OpenAI Client">
To use Azure OpenAI, you need to configure the client to connect to your Azure OpenAI resource as follows:


```python
import os
from openai import AsyncAzureOpenAI

# Create a custom AsyncOpenAI client for Azure
azure_agent = AsyncAzureOpenAI(
    api_key=os.getenv("AZURE_OPENAI_KEY"),
    azure_endpoint=os.getenv("AZURE_ENDPOINT"),
    api_version=os.getenv("AZURE_API_VERSION"),
)
```


</Step>

<Step title="Update Agent Model Parameters">

Set the `model` parameter inside each agent to use your custom client and model:

```python
from agency_swarm import Agent, OpenAIChatCompletionsModel

# Define your agent and pass the custom client into the model
azure_agent = Agent(
    name="AzureAgent",
    instructions="You are a helpful assistant",
    model=OpenAIChatCompletionsModel(
        model="gpt-5.4-mini",
        openai_client=azure_agent,
    ),
)
```
<Note>
Model deployment name might be different from the standard OpenAI model names. It is set by you when you deploy a model to Azure.
</Note>

</Step>

<Step title="Run Your Agency">

After configuring the client and updating the agents, you can run your agency as usual:

```python
import asyncio
from agency_swarm import Agency

agency=Agency(azure_agent)

agency.tui()
```

The first terminal run downloads the matching terminal app automatically.
</Step>
</Steps>

For other model providers (Anthropic, Google, AWS Bedrock, etc.), see [Third-Party Models](/additional-features/third-party-models).