Personal site

Twenty-five years shipping software. Now, shipping generative AI.

I'm Mike Richter, a Microsoft Principal Solution Architect based on Long Island. I help partners get production-ready AI onto Azure, and I speak about it from Singapore to São Paulo. This page is a working portfolio: live demos, recent talks, and the code behind them.

Explore the demos Get in touch

Why work with me

What I bring to the room

  • Real AI, shipped fast

    From "let's try Copilot" to a working internal tool in weeks; not quarters. Seven live demos prove the playbook.

  • Microsoft-grade architecture

    Principal-level Azure, AI, and security depth. Recognized by Microsoft across multiple fiscal years. AZ-204 and AZ-400 certified.

  • A speaker your team will listen to

    From mainstage in Singapore to fraud-conference workshops in NYC; talks that land with developers and executives alike.

  • Local. Available. Accountable.

    Based in Huntington, NY. Serving Long Island and the five boroughs in person.

Live demos

Working software, not slides

Each of these is on the public internet and built with the same patterns I would use for your team. Click through and break them.

  • Nasuni on Azure Assistant

    nasuni.mikerichter.app

    Partner / infrastructure architects

    A streaming Microsoft Foundry hosted agent that answers Nasuni-on-Azure deployment questions, grounded in Nasuni docs + Microsoft Learn through a Foundry IQ knowledge base. Every tool call passes a deterministic governance gate (default-deny capability policy, prompt-injection detection, sensitive-data egress scanning, tamper-evident audit) and answer quality is scored with built-in Foundry evaluations for groundedness, relevance, and retrieval. Live tool pills plus per-turn token and cost tracking round out the UI.

    Flip the Governance ON/OFF toggle in the chat and replay a secret-leak or prompt-injection prompt to watch the guardrails enforce, then get bypassed, live.

    • Microsoft Foundry
    • Hosted Agents
    • Foundry IQ (Knowledge Bases)
    • Azure AI Search
    • MS Learn MCP
    • AI Governance Toolkit
    • Foundry Evaluations
    • .NET 10
    • React
    • Azure Container Apps

  • AI Fraud Lab

    fraudai.mikerichter.app

    Banking / fintech risk teams

    ML + a Foundry agent catching synthetic-identity fraud, built in nine days of vibe coding.

    • .NET 10
    • React
    • ML.NET
    • Microsoft Foundry

  • Contoso Risk Agent

    crak.mikerichter.app

    Insurance / financial-services analysts

    Risk-assessment chatbot grounded in Elastic search over enterprise data.

    • Azure AI
    • Elastic
    • Python

  • Event Finder

    eventfinder.site

    Sales and partner teams

    AI-curated discovery for Microsoft customer events, with personalized briefings.

    • React
    • Azure OpenAI
    • Azure Functions

  • ObjectDash

    objectdash.com

    Consumer / demo

    Find hidden objects in AI-generated scenes. Casual game built with Copilot.

    • TypeScript
    • React
    • Azure OpenAI

  • Customer Support Agent

    bcfips.mikerichter.app

    Regulated-industry support teams

    Agentic retrieval assistant for premium-tier customers working through difficult encryption and cryptography workloads. Grounded in product documentation via hybrid (keyword + semantic) search.

    Reference architecture available on request.

    • Azure AI Foundry
    • Azure AI Search
    • Hybrid search
    • Microsoft Agent Framework
    • .NET
    • Bicep

  • Ruby's Bat Mitzvah

    rubybatmitzvah.online

    Personal

    A family event site. Proof that the same toolchain serves real, joyful, non-AI work.

    • Jekyll
    • Static hosting

Dive into the AI Lab →

Speaking

From mainstage in Singapore to fraud conferences in NYC

Recent talks on generative AI, search-grounded agents, security and partnerships.

Mike Richter on stage at ElasticON Singapore 2026, name and Microsoft title displayed on three large screens above a packed audience.
ElasticON Singapore, March 2026
Mike Richter presenting on stage in Singapore with his official Microsoft headshot projected beside him.
ElasticON Singapore opening keynote
Mike Richter at the podium mid-keynote at ElasticON Singapore.
Mid-keynote, Marina Bay Sands
Mike Richter presenting the AI Fraud Lab demo at the NYCFE Spring Fraud Conference, Microsoft NYC venue.
NYCFE Spring Fraud Conference, NYC
Mike Richter speaking with a handheld microphone on stage at ElasticON Singapore.
Q&A on the Singapore mainstage

  • Microsoft Build 2026, DEMSP395: Teach AI agents to manage context with Elastic Agent Builder

    Microsoft Build (Festival Pavilion, Theater A)

    Jun 2026
    Where
    Festival Pavilion, Theater A (Fort Mason, San Francisco)
    Role
    Speaker
    Audience
    Theater segment within Build (hundreds)

    Teach AI agents to manage context with Elastic Agent Builder.

  • NYCFE Spring Fraud Conference 2026: From Idea to Fraud Lab in Days

    NYCFE Spring Fraud Conference 2026 (hosted at Microsoft NYC)

    May 2026
    Where
    Microsoft NYC, 11 Times Square (Music Box / Winter Garden, 5th floor, Rm 5411)
    Role
    Speaker (11:35 AM session)
    Audience
    80 registered (room capacity up to 92)

    From Idea to Fraud Lab in Days: Vibe Coding an AI-Powered Expense Fraud Simulator with GitHub Copilot. Live demo of a full-stack fraud-detection app built via natural-language conversation with an AI coding agent; ML anomaly detection plus AI investigator running on the Microsoft AI platform (Azure AI Foundry).

  • Microsoft Build 2026, Elastic Speaking Session and Developer Event

    Microsoft Build (Elastic-coordinated)

    May 2026
    Where
    San Francisco (Build / Elastic-coordinated)
    Role
    Speaker (partner session)
    Audience
    Partner event scale

    Elastic plus Microsoft developer story for Build.

  • Intapp CIO Leadership Summit

    Intapp CIO Leadership Summit

    May 2026
    Where
    NYC (Day 1, Bronze Owl; Day 2, Microsoft Times Square at 11 Times Sq)
    Role
    Speaker / panelist (invited; speaker prep confirmed)
    Audience
    Summit-scale (dozens)

    AI for professional services (Intapp plus Microsoft).

  • a global CPG enterprise x Microsoft x a process-mining ISV EBC

    a process-mining ISV NYC office

    Apr 2026
    Where
    a process-mining ISV NYC office (Freedom Tower area)
    Role
    Speaker / Microsoft technical lead
    Audience
    Executive briefing (~10-20)

    Microsoft and a process-mining ISV 'Better Together' for a global CPG enterprise leadership.

  • Smarsh CONNECT Roundtable, Session 4 (Capture)

    Smarsh CONNECT Roundtable

    Apr 2026
    Where
    New York City (in-person)
    Role
    Invited speaker / panelist (roundtable)
    Audience
    Roundtable-scale (~15-30)

    AI governance, Copilot capture and compliance.

See all 28 talks →  ·  Need a speaker? Get in touch.

Public notebook

What I'm thinking about

Short observations from real demos and real conversations. New posts go up here first.

  • Shipping the site that ships the site

    Jun 7, 2026

    This site is the demo. Astro 5, Tailwind, MDX content, Azure Static Web Apps, GitHub Actions, and a generator script that makes blogging cost ~30 seconds of friction.

    • #site
    • #astro
    • #azure
    • #meta

  • Let the Platform Own the Plumbing

    Aug 18, 2026

    Microsoft Foundry just absorbed the agent scaffolding every team keeps rebuilding, and put it on Azure-hosted models. The lesson is a permission slip: stop rewriting commodity plumbing and spend your engineers on what only you can build.

    • #foundry
    • #agents
    • #azure

  • Publish Your System Prompt Like It's Code

    Aug 16, 2026

    Anthropic maintains a public, dated changelog of the system prompts behind Claude's consumer apps. It is a quiet argument that your own system prompt is load-bearing configuration, and you should treat it like code, not a magic string.

    • #devex
    • #agents
    • #ai

Read all notes →  ·  Subscribe via RSS.

Code

Open-source reference work

A selection of demo apps, reference architectures and agent patterns published on GitHub.

Full list on github.com/michaelsrichter .

Testimonials

What people say after we ship

  • “You bring the right amount of brevity, thoughtfulness, and technical know-how to everything you do… we've sent you across the Earth (London to Singapore) and points in-between for our partnership. You've accomplished on your own and in collaboration with larger teams.”
    Microsoft engineering leader
    2026
  • “I'm continually impressed with your stage presence and how you easily calibrate the message to different personas in attendance, while maintaining a level of authority and approachability. It's truly a joy working with you.”
    Microsoft engineering leader
    2025
  • “The Microsoft team was incredible.”
    Managing Director, Microsoft Modernization Microsoft partner; Global SI
    2024
  • “A heartfelt thank you for the incredible teamwork at our flagship customer event.”
    Global Partner Marketing Lead Microsoft partner; ISV
    2024
  • “I would like to convey my appreciation and that of the entire team for your unwavering support throughout this year. We look forward to next year.”
    Vice President Microsoft partner; Global SI
    2023
  • “I am excited to see how we can work together with our new consulting offerings to help drive Azure consumption.”
    Vice President, Business Development Microsoft partner; ISV
    2023

Credentials

Certifications and recognition

Current Microsoft role-based certifications plus public-facing recognition.

Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert

Microsoft · 2025

  • AZ-400

Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate

Microsoft · 2024

  • AZ-204

Recognition

Multiple Microsoft awards

Recognized by Microsoft across multiple fiscal years for customer-facing impact and partner technical advisory, including the company's top-tier annual sales recognition program.

About

About Mike

Principal-level Partner Solution Architect at Microsoft with 25 years building software and the last three driving partner AI integration across Azure OpenAI, the Azure AI platform, vector search, RAG, MCP, and AI security. In the past year, co-headlined mainstage moments with a strategic ISV at flagship partner events in APAC and EMEA, reaching 800+ customers with a joint go-to-market narrative. Advanced enterprise AI conversations across financial services, retail, automotive, and consumer-goods accounts on three continents, and led an AI readiness initiative for managed partners that activated dozens of partners through playbooks and recurring office hours. Built reusable AI demo assets with GitHub Copilot and packaged AI envisioning workshops as train-the-trainer enablement adopted by multiple global SI and ISV partners. Earlier flagship work; designed and led a partner AI co-sell motion that generated meaningful partner pipeline in partner pipeline, authored an AI envisioning workshop curriculum adopted as required training for partner-facing roles globally, and remains the Microsoft architect routinely requested by name by strategic ISVs spanning search, identity, geospatial, and storage. Has served as co-interim manager for a partner-facing engineering team, mentors peers across geographies, and rallies cross-functional stakeholders around shared frameworks. Peers consistently describe him as generous with his time, calm under complexity, and able to bring clarity that moves stuck conversations forward.

Get in touch

Tell me what you are trying to ship

A short email is the fastest path. I read everything personally.

Best for: SMB and SMC leaders evaluating generative AI on Microsoft Azure, looking for hands-on technical advisory, prototyping, or a credible speaker.

Email mike@elfhome.com

What to include in your first email

  • One sentence on the business outcome you want.
  • What you have tried already, and what is stuck.
  • Timeline and rough scope, if you have one.
  • Who decides, and who would be in the first meeting.

Independent engagements only; no current-employer conflicts. References on request.