A colleague of mine recently spent way too much time wrestling with Azure OpenAI’s Realtime AI.
 The problem?

  • Tons of packages and samples out there, but not a clear step-by-step on how to actually establish a connection.
  • When it finally did connect, reading text aloud often led to random connection drops.
  • The content filter occasionally jumped in like an overprotective parent.

Sounds familiar? Yeah… welcome to the club. 🫠

The “Aha!” Moment 💡
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While investigating, I suspected that switching to WebRTC might solve some of the instability issues. That led me to this Microsoft Learn article:

đź”— Realtime Audio with WebRTC (Azure OpenAI)

And there it was… a simple HTML + JavaScript example that just works.
 No heavy SDKs. No 15 layers of abstraction. Just a direct, minimal WebRTC connection to Azure OpenAI Realtime AI.

The Secret Sauce: Hidden URLs 🕵️‍♂️
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Here’s the wild part — the article includes mandatory WebRTC URLs that you won’t find anywhere else in the Azure portal (at least not at the time of writing). Without them, you can’t even connect.

If your Azure OpenAI resource is in the swedencentral region:

https://swedencentral.realtimeapi-preview.ai.azure.com/v1/realtimertc

If your Azure OpenAI resource is in the eastus2 region:

https://eastus2.realtimeapi-preview.ai.azure.com/v1/realtimertc

These should be highlighted in bold neon lights somewhere in the docs, because without them, you’re basically trying to make a phone call without knowing the number. 📞❌

Why This Example is a Game Changer ⚡
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Almost every GitHub repo or blog post I found uses the OpenAI SDK to connect.
 Here’s the thing: you don’t need it for this. In fact, for a quick PoC, it just gets in the way.

The HTML + JavaScript snippet from Microsoft’s Learn article makes it:

  • Faster to set up — literally minutes instead of hours.
  • Simpler — no SDK-specific API changes to worry about.
  • Cleaner — pure browser-based WebRTC, easy to debug.

It’s a reminder that sometimes the “official” path with SDKs isn’t always the fastest route to a working prototype. Especially with new features like Azure OpenAI Realtime, where the ecosystem is still catching up.

Takeaway 🎯
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If you’re trying to get Azure OpenAI’s Realtime AI working:

  1. Check the Microsoft Learn article linked above.
  2. Grab the WebRTC URLs for your region.
  3. Skip the SDK (at least initially) and try the HTML/JS example.

You might just save yourself a week of head-scratching, endless logs, and debugging sessions at 2 AM.

Happy coding — and may your Realtime AI never randomly drop mid-sentence again. 🎙️✨