Building the Future with Microsoft Azure AI

Siloed data, outdated systems and inefficient processes are compromising business performance. Businesses that fail to modernise their infrastructure will ultimately create a barrier to adopting modern technologies, which will lead to lack of innovation and scalability, and in some cases, a backward trajectory.

This ‘digital debt’ is costing businesses, with 64% of employees currently not having enough time or energy to do their job, according to the 2023 Work Trend Index – with 87% of organisations believing AI will help them overcome these challenges to give them a competitive edge. 

Microsoft Azure AI can help companies tap into this trend. Whether you’re looking for a way to build, integrate, deploy or manage your AI product, the Azure AI platform offers all the applications and tools to take your AI product to market.  And at a time where competition is rifer than ever, it’s crucial to success that businesses continue to develop their products and services in-line with customer need and technology advancement. With possibilities relating to the latter becoming almost limitless, AI will no doubt play a significant role in innovation for years to come. 

If you can see AI playing a pivotal role in the future of your organisation, then keep reading to find out how 53,000 businesses are already using the Azure AI platform to push the capabilities of their products and services, and how it can benefit your company. 

What is Azure AI? 

Across the business landscape, there’s been plenty of exploration into generative AI and its capabilities, with organisations using tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot to solve internal productivity challenges. However, the true potential of AI lies with companies having the ability to integrate it with their own business applications and systems.

Using the Azure AI platform, businesses can unlock this potential of generative AI, offering all the building blocks for developers to create and bring intelligent apps to market, in one place. Using its tools, companies will be able to create market-ready, responsible applications that leverage functionalities such as natural language processing, speech recognition and translation, as well as computer vision and decision making, which help unlock features like: 

• Chatbots & virtual assistants 
• Image analysis, captioning, visual search and facial recognition
• Text analysis, summarisation and document classification 
• Real-time speech recognition and translation, including speech-to-text transcription 
• Personalisation and recommendation capabilities 
• And much more…

Not only is Azure AI trusted by businesses around-the-world, but Microsoft have confirmed that all of its platforms and Copilots have been created using the same infrastructure and applications that they’ve made available to us with the release of AI, demonstrating their belief in the system and what’s possible when you leverage the tools at scale. 

What is the Azure AI stack? 

The Azure AI stack consists of the Azure AI studio, which includes all the applications and tools to leverage, build and deploy your own AI solutions. This includes:

• Azure AI services which are pre-trained, pre-built, ready to use AI applications AI search & open AI service. 
• Azure machine learning – full-lifecycle tools to build, train, deploy and manage the full lifecycle of generative AI. 
• Model catalogue – a full catalogue of MaaS, GPT model family, small language models and open-source models that users can test and experiment with.

All of this is built within the Azure infrastructure, a state-of-the-art, secure system that’s been created to handle AI workloads. 

Unlock copilot assistance with Azure AI

Azure AI supports organisations in bringing copilot assistance to their own apps, using their first party owned data to drive performance, enabling quicker routes to markets and much greater user and customer experiences.

By taking advantage of the generative AI functionality that Azure AI offers, organisations can do things such as: 

• Build Copilot extensions to improve productivity in Copilot Studio 
• Use Visual Studio to build and integrate copilots and extensions with code 
• Build custom models, orchestration, and AI tooling for your copilots and extensions
• Use Azure OpenAI Studio to craft your chat experience and seamlessly integrate it into Teams

With all of this at a business’ disposal, teams will be able to innovate and overcome an array of challenges, including low productivity, lack of insight and building personalised customer experiences. 

Preparing for the future of AI with Azure

While innovation and exploration of AI continues, one thing we know for certain is that autonomous, agentic AI is only going to become more popular as businesses start to leverage its capabilities to support productivity. 

The Azure AI platform is a great way for businesses to take their first step towards personalised and autonomous AI. By accessing a library of models and pre-built templates, you can experiment, customise and integrate your own generative AI, learning as you go. 

To get started, get in touch with our specialist team, who can answer any of your questions and offer expert support as you integrate the platform into your IT team.