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Fundamentals of Azure AI Services)

Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: AI Overview
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing our world and there’s hardly an
industry that hasn't been affected. From better healthcare to online safety,
AI is helping us to tackle some of society’s biggest issues.

Azure AI services are a portfolio of AI capabilities that unlock automation

for workloads in language, vision, intelligent search, content generation,
and much more. They are straightforward to implement and don’t require
specialist AI knowledge.

Organizations are using Azure AI services in innovative ways, such as

within robots to provide life-like companionship to older people by
expressing happiness, concern, and even laughter. In other use cases,
scientists are using AI to protect endangered species by identifying hard-
to-find animals in images.

This was previously time-consuming and error-prone work, which the

Azure AI Vision service can complete quickly and with a high degree of
accuracy, freeing scientists to do other work.

In this module you will learn what Azure AI services are, and how you can
use them in your own applications.

AI services on the Azure platform

Azure AI services are AI capabilities that can be built into web or mobile
applications, in a way that's straightforward to implement. These AI
services include image recognition, natural language processing, speech,
AI-powered search, and more. There are over a dozen different
services that can be used separately or together to add AI power to
applications.

Let's take a look at some examples of what can be done with Azure AI
services. The Azure AI Content Safety service can be used to detect
harmful content within text or images, including violent or hateful content,
and report on its severity. The Azure AI Language service can be used to
summarize text, classify information, or extract key phrases. The Azure AI
Speech service provides powerful speech to text and text to speech
capabilities, allowing speech to be accurately transcribed into text, or text
to natural sounding voice audio.

Azure AI services are based on three principles that dramatically improve

speed-to-market:
● Prebuilt and ready to use
● Accessed through APIs
● Available on Azure

Azure AI services are prebuilt and ready to use

AI has been prohibitive for all but the largest technology companies
because of several factors, including the large amounts of data required to
train models, the massive amount of computing power needed, and the
budget to hire specialist programmers. Azure AI services make AI
accessible to businesses of all sizes by using pre-trained machine
learning models to deliver AI as a service. Azure AI services use high-
performance Azure computing to deploy advanced AI models as
resources, making decades of research available to developers of all skill
levels.

Azure AI services are a portfolio of services, with capabilities suitable for

use cases across sectors and industries.
For example, in education, Immersive Reader is being used to support
students by adapting to their requirements. Learners can have varying
needs, such as wanting to read more slowly, get words or text translated
into another language, or see pictures to aid their understanding.
Immersive Reader helps students with different needs learn at their own
pace, and in their own way.

While Azure AI services can be used without any modification, some AI

services can be customized to better fit specific requirements.
Customization capabilities in Azure AI Vision, Azure AI Speech, and Azure
OpenAI all allow you to add data to existing models.

For example, in sport, athletes, and coaches are customizing Azure AI

Vision to improve performance and reduce injury. One application
allows surfers to upload a video and receive AI-generated insights and
analysis. These insights can then be used by coaches, medics, judges,
and event broadcasters.

Azure AI services are accessed through APIs

Azure AI services are designed to be used in different development
environments, with minimal coding. Developers can access AI services
through REST APIs, client libraries, or integrate them with tools such as
Logic Apps and Power Automate. APIs are application programming
interfaces that define the information that is required for one component
to use the services of the other. APIs enable software components to
communicate, so one side can be updated without stopping the other
from working. Find out more about development options for Azure AI
services here.

Azure AI services are available on Azure

AI services are cloud-based and accessed through Azure resource. This
means that they're managed in the same way as other Azure services,
such as platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), or
a managed database service. The Azure platform and Resource Manager
provide a consistent framework for all your Azure services, from creating
or deleting resources, to availability and billing.

Note
In some situations, AI has the potential to be used in ways that might
compromise an individual's privacy or rights. Microsoft has six
Responsible AI principles to help ensure AI services are ethical and fair.
Because of this, certain Azure AI services are restricted to ensure they're
used responsibly.

Create Azure AI service resources

Azure AI services are cloud-based, and like all Azure services you need to
create a resource to use them. There are two types of AI service
resources: multi-service or single-service. Your development
requirements and how you want costs to be billed determine the types of
resources you need.
● Multi-service resource: a resource created in the Azure portal that

provides access to multiple Azure AI services with a single key and

endpoint. Use the resource Azure AI services when you need several
AI services or are exploring AI capabilities. When you use an Azure AI
services resource, all your AI services are billed together.
● Single-service resources: a resource created in the Azure portal that

provides access to a single Azure AI service, such as Speech, Vision,

Language, etc. Each Azure AI service has a unique key and endpoint.
These resources might be used when you only require one AI service
or want to see cost information separately.

You can create a resource several ways, such as in the Azure portal.

How to use the Azure portal to create an Azure AI services

resource
To create an Azure AI services resource, sign in to the Azure portal with
Contributor access and select Create a resource. To create a multi-
services resource search for Azure AI services in the marketplace.
To create a single-service resource, search for the specific Azure AI
service such as Face, Language, or Content Safety, and so on. Most AI
services have a free price tier to allow you to explore their capabilities.
After clicking Create for the resource you require, you will be prompted to
complete details of your subscription, the resource group to contain the
resource, the region, a unique name, and the price tier.

Use Azure AI services

Once you create an Azure AI service resource, you can build applications
using the REST API, software development kits (SDKs), or visual studio
interfaces.
Using service studio interfaces
Studio interfaces provide a friendly user interface to explore Azure AI
services. There are different studios for different Azure AI services, such
as Vision Studio, Language Studio, Speech Studio, and the Content Safety
Studio. You can test out Azure AI services using the samples provided, or
experiment with your own content. A studio-based approach allows you to
explore, demo, and evaluate Azure AI services regardless of your
experience with AI or coding.

Associate the AI service resource

Before you can use an AI service resource, you must associate it with the
studio you want to use on the Settings page. Select the resource, and
then select Use Resource. You are then ready to explore the Azure AI
service within the studio.
As an example, let's look at the Azure AI Content Safety service, which
identifies harmful text or images. To explore what the Content Safety
service does, let's use the Content Safety Studio. First create either a
multi-service Azure AI services resource, or a single-service Content
Safety resource. Then, on the Content Safety Studio Settings page, select
the resource, and select Use Resource. The AI service you created is now
associated with the Content Safety Studio, and ready to be used.

Note
When developers incorporate an AI service into their applications, they
often use a SDK or the REST API.

Understand authentication for Azure AI services

You've now learned how to create an AI service resource and associate it
with an Azure AI studio. But how do you ensure that only those authorized
have access to your AI service? This is done through authentication, the
process of verifying that the user or service is who they say they are, and
that they are authorized to use the service.

Most Azure AI services are accessed through a RESTful API, although

there are other ways. The API defines what information is passed between
two software components: the Azure AI service and whatever is using it.
Having a clearly defined interface is important, because if the AI service is
updated, your application must continue to work correctly.

Part of what an API does is to handle authentication. Whenever a request

is made to use an AI services resource, that request must be
authenticated. For example, your subscription and AI service resource is
verified to ensure you have sufficient permissions to access it. This
authentication process uses an endpoint and a resource key.

The endpoint describes how to reach the AI service resource instance that
you want to use, in a similar way to the way a URL identifies a web site.
When you view the endpoint for your resource, it will look something like:

https://myaiservices29.cognitiveservices.azure.com/

The resource key protects the privacy of your resource. To ensure this is
always secure, the key can be changed periodically. You can view the
endpoint and key in the Azure portal under Resource Management and
Keys and Endpoint.
When you write code to access the AI service, the keys and endpoint must
be included in the authentication header. The authentication header sends
an authorization key to the service to confirm that the application can use
the resource. Learn more about different authentication requests to Azure
AI services here.

When you use a studio interface with Azure AI services, your credentials
are authenticated when you sign in, and a similar process is happening in
the background.

1. An application requires three separate AI services. To

see the cost for each separately, what type of resource(s)
should be created?
A single-service resource for each AI service
Correct. Create a single-service resource for each AI service to see
costs separately for each resource.

2. After logging into one of the Azure studios, what is one

task to complete to begin using the studio?
Associate a resource with the studio
Correct. To explore the capabilities of the service in the studio, you
must first associate the resource with the studio.

3. What is an Azure AI services resource?

A bundle of several AI services in one resource
Correct. An Azure AI services resource is a bundle of several AI
services in one resource.

Summary
Azure AI services are easy to use AI capabilities made available as
resources on the Azure platform. AI service capabilities include Language,
Speech, Vision, Decision, Cognitive Search, and Azure OpenAI.

In this module we’ve used several different terms relating to AI services.

Here's a recap:
● API – application programming interfaces (APIs) enable software

components to communicate, so one side can be updated without

stopping the other from working.
● Artificial Intelligence (AI) – computer programs that respond in ways

that are normally associated with human reasoning, learning, and

thought.
● Azure AI services – a portfolio of AI services that can be incorporated

into applications quickly and easily without specialist

knowledge. Azure AI services is also the name for the multi-service
resource created in the Azure portal that provides access to several
 different Azure AI services with a single key and endpoint.
● Endpoint – the location of a resource, such as an Azure AI service.
● Key – a private string that is used to authenticate a request.
● Machine learning – the ability for computer programs to learn from
large amounts of data, in a process known as "training".
● Multi-service resource – the AI service resource created in the Azure
portal that provides access to a bundle of AI services.
● Single-service resource – a resource created in the Azure portal that
provides access to a single Azure AI service, such as Speech, Vision,
Language, etc. Each Azure AI service has a unique key and endpoint.
● RESTful API – a scalable web application programming interface used
to access Azure AI services.

You can find out more about Azure AI services in the service
documentation.