Everyone wants AI agents that can work with real business data. Most teams assume that this requires new services, AI-specific endpoints, or a backend rewrite. It doesn't!

In this session, you will see a plain REST API—an Azure Function with zero AI code—become a complete toolset for an AI agent live on stage. The entire transformation occurs at the gateway. Azure API Management exposes the API's operations as MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools.

In the end, a chatbot will answer questions such as "Where is order ORD-2026-0142, and when will it arrive?" by autonomously selecting the appropriate tools and accessing the live API.

You will leave knowing what MCP is and why it's popular, how API Management turns operations into tools while maintaining governance, rate limits, and observability, why tool descriptions are the new API contract, and how to determine which of your existing APIs are AI-ready.