How to Leverage Azure AI Services for Custom Software Development: A Business Perspective

With a global market of AI/ML technologies growing at an expected annual growth rate of 37.3% between 2023 and 2030, artificial intelligence remains one of the hottest trends in software development. Whether it goes about the integration of generative AI components, adoption of ML models, or usage of AI-powered services, artificial intelligence is on the rise.

New tools and services constantly emerge, as the biggest technology companies keep investing in the most promising AI solutions. Microsoft doesn’t stand aside from AI software development trends. Today, we provide an overview of Microsoft’s AI services that are especially relevant to custom software development. We focus on services offered by Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform. It is enriched with a solid set of AI-powered tools and services for machine learning model development. The impact of using the benefits of both Azure and AI technologies might be spectacular to businesses, as it brings a perfect blend of cloud flexibility and AI’s unlimited innovation.

In this article, we will explore the primary advantages of Azure AI services, explore the most useful AI/ML technologies within the Azure ecosystem, and provide some tips on implementing Azure’s AI services.

Azure AI services can bring businesses a variety of benefits. In particular, businesses can leverage the power of AI algorithms in their cloud-based applications, which opens great opportunities for developing cost-efficient and highly-automated applications. Azure’s AI services can be applied to different use cases.

In particular, Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning can be used for building, training, and integrating custom ML models and AI features serving different purposes, such as analytics, automated user communication, and software system monitoring and management. Azure also provides AI tools that cover image processing and recognition, such as Azure AI Face and Azure AI Vision, and tools for processing written or spoken language, such as Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, Azure Speech Service. Azure Open AI and Azure Bot Service can also automate and handle user communication. For anomaly detection and system monitoring, users can apply custom ML solutions built with Azure’s AI services or use Azure Anomaly Detector.

These are the main advantages of using these Azure AI tools for business.

Automation is one of the most common reasons to implement AI. In some cases, AI can even replace employees, especially when it comes to handling routine tasks. A great example of such a product is Leo, Leobit’s email auto-response solution that provides users with personalized responses, freeing time for sales representatives.

Automation is one of AI’s brightest benefits. For example, generative AI models, such as ChatGPT can help businesses automate customer interactions. Microsoft offers some of the best tools for automating routine tasks, such as Microsoft Power Automate. The tool perfectly works in combination with some of Azure’s AI features, such as AI Builder. In addition, many tools from Azure’s AI stack are notable for a strong focus on automation. For example, Azure Cognitive Services provide automotive AI-powered scripts for image recognition, documentation processing, and cognitive searches. Azure’s machine learning tools also provide features for automated machine learning. In general, Azure’s AI functionality is meant to be used for process automation, which makes them a perfect fit for businesses that need to save time and effort on various tasks.

A comprehensive system of self-serving tools that work autonomously sounded like a utopia a few years ago. Nowadays, it is closer to reality than ever. With a comprehensive suite of Azure’s AI tools and services, you can create a system that has many crucial processes fully automated. Such an ecosystem will run critical workflows, solve technical challenges, and provide analytical insights with minimal human involvement.

Microsoft offers a great range of AI services that can independently solve various tasks, from data monitoring and image processing to customer communication and smart data searchers. For example, you can build a system where Azure AI Vision processes documentation with its character processing scripts, while LLM models created with Azure AI Studio interprets this documentation and provides a summary. Meanwhile, Azure OpenAI, integrated into this system, can handle customer communication relying on the information from these documents. Basically, Azure provides opportunities for building and training a variety of machine learning models that can be connected to almost any tool in the Azure ecosystem.

AI and ML services are very efficient when it comes to boosting innovation. They allow businesses to gain deeper insights, automate processes, and enhance decision-making. Microsoft is one of the global leaders in innovation, and the company constantly updates its AI models, such as OpenAI GPT-4 Turbo and GPT-3.5 Turbo. Besides, Azure constantly updates its APIs for fine-tuning of machine learning models. This creates almost boundless opportunities for training these models to solve the most complex challenges and fit unique use cases.

Such technologies can help you develop new products and services, improve customer engagement through intelligent and automated interactions, and foster a culture of continuous improvement within your company. All these benefits offer you great opportunities for gaining a competitive edge or creating a completely unique market positioning in the market.

AI supports intelligent automation and a variety of useful tools for efficient cloud ecosystem management. Azure’s AI tools can automatically optimize resource allocation based on real-time usage patterns, reducing costs and improving performance. Azure has tools and practices for each crucial area of system management. In particular, Azure Monitor covers system monitoring needs, Azure Automation provides efficient tools for automated system configuration, Azure Policy helps you enforce rules for your system, Azure Cost Management allows you to track cloud spendings and keep your system cost-efficient, Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides efficient security monitoring and threat analysis, Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery help you manage system continuity, and Azure Migrate helps you handle cloud migrations efficiently. All these capabilities can be enhanced with AI scripts to reduce manual intervention and simplify the work of system administrators and data engineers. This helps companies save money and resources while keeping the cloud system highly reliable.

While being associated with rather high upfront costs, AI solutions can significantly enhance cost-efficiency for businesses by automating routine tasks, reducing operational errors, and optimizing resource usage. In addition, by building your system with ready-to-go Azure services, you can significantly reduce the upfront investment. You will need to pay for cloud resources you use, but the cost can be significantly reduced with the best cloud cost optimization practices. In addition, Azure provides the Azure Cost Management service to help companies monitor and optimize their cloud spendings. Particular features of Azure’s AI services also help businesses save money in the long run. AI-driven automation minimizes the need for manual labor, freeing up employees to focus on more strategic tasks. ML scripts for predictive analytics can help you forecast demand, leading to better inventory management and reduced waste. Finally, AI algorithms can identify inefficiencies in processes and suggest improvements, leading to lower operational costs.

Azure’s AI services have evolved significantly over the past decade. In 2014, Microsoft announced the release of Azure Machine Learning, a service aimed at helping data scientists and software developers build, configure, and train machine learning models facilitating predictive analytics. Over the last decades, Azure’s suite of AI-powered services has grown exponentially. With the release of Azure Cognitive Services in 2016, platform users have received a collection of AI-powered APIs and services aimed at solving various tasks, like image and speech recognition, with the help of machine learning algorithms. In 2023, Microsoft released its Azure OpenAI, a cloud-based generative AI platform with features similar to OpeanAI’s ChatGPT. The same year also brought the onset of Azure AI Studio, a platform that provides a unified environment for building, training, and deploying AI models.

Azure AI Studio seamlessly integrates with some of Azure’s tools that are especially important in custom software development. So, here is our list including top Azure AI picks that may be useful in custom software development. It, primarily, includes the tools with which our team of specialists has solid experience.

Azure AI Studio
This Azure AI platform offers an efficient hub for using, creating, and training large language models. Azure AI Studio offers intuitive tools and pre-built models that enable businesses to accelerate AI development and integrate intelligent features into their applications. Developers can choose from the catalog of the existing models, customize them, and appropriate them to their specific business needs. Or there is an option of using Azure AI Studio’s tools to create ML models for diverse purposes almost from scratch. Additionally, Azure AI Studio supports collaboration across teams and integrates seamlessly with other Azure services, enhancing productivity and innovation.

Azure Machine Learning
Azure Machine Learning is designed for building, training, and deploying machine learning models at scale. It allows data scientists and developers to create custom ML models serving different purposes. Contrarily to Azure Studio, which is aimed at specialists who need to integrate AI capabilities into their apps with minimal coding, Azure Machine Learning offers a full control over the machine learning process. Therefore, this service is perfect for the development of custom ML scripts that serve unique purposes.

Azure OpenAI
Azure OpenAI is Azure’s response to Open AI’s ChatGPT. It is a very popular generative AI tool that seamlessly integrates with Azure’s AI ecosystem. Azure OpenAI is a very productive and cost-efficient tool for fine-tuned models. In particular, you only pay for the operating time of the instance instead of paying for individual calls. It provides a variety of models, including GPT-4o, GPT-4, GPT-3.5, Codex, and DALL-E models, which makes it a useful tool for generating not only texts but also images. It also perfectly integrates with other Azure services, like Power Platform and Azure Cognitive Services.

One of the most critical advantages of Azure OpenAI over Chat GPT is that it offers an isolated environment where all your data can be stored on dedicated Azure servers. Microsoft grants that this data is not accessible to anyone outside of your company, which is crucial in terms of security. Azure OpenAI can be very useful in language processing, as it can swiftly restructure, summarize, and correct texts, aid in translation, run quick information searches, and generate informative and topic-specific texts on demand.

Azure AI Search
It is Azure’s set of AI-powered tools for search. It is aimed at delivering high-quality responses with a vector database. It offers text search features similar to the ones of Elasticsearch supported with AI algorithms. Azure AI Search can be seamlessly integrated into any Azure environment and offers much space for custom search configurations, including the possibility of running high-quality semantic searches.

Azure Speech Service
It is one of the most efficient tools for text-to-speech or speech-to-text translation. The Speech Service uses AI/ML scripts to achieve high accuracy and produce natural-sounding text-to-speech voices, translate spoken audio, and use speaker recognition during conversations. It can be easily integrated into a broader solution, such as a corporate LLM. Azure Speech Service can support a variety of custom configurations, such as voice parameters and speech speed. Our team used it while developing Leora, Leobit’s AI-powered sales manager.

Azure AI Translator
Azure also offers its AI-powered translation tool. Azure AI Translator efficiently translates stylistically diverse texts using different language pairs. It can also be configured by the user to deal with particular styles, topics, and purposes. This powerful translation tool uses AI scripts to identify the context of the text, run semantic searches, and provide results created with attention to style and format.

Azure AI Vision
Azure AI Vision, is an AI service that offers a standard set of tools for using computer vision, a technology enabling computers to interpret and process visual data, such as images and videos, to make decisions or gain insights. This service allows you to make image requests and recommendations and includes recognition scripts that can be integrated into a wide range of solutions, including documentation processing software.

Azure AI Face
Here is another image processing tool supported with AI/ML scripts. Azure AI Face can be easily integrated into any solution that requires face recognition. It can be applied in any software that interacts with sensitive data or payment operations in order to ensure secure user authentication. It is also a useful integration for apps dealing with security cameras, streaming solutions, or any other software that can require face recognition. AI/ML scripts provided by Azure work very efficiently to process images or videos, locate faces, and identify them by retrieving the data from vast databases.

Azure OpenAI
Apart from language processing, Azure OpenAI can be used as a large language model for user and customer communication. For example, by providing this tool with access to company specific data, you can integrate it into your app as a chatbot that will handle customer communication. You can also use Azure OpenAI for creating AI employees that will assist your customers in many processes. Leobit has already leveraged the power of this LLM to build Leora, an AI-powered sales rep assistant that provides suggestions to customer queries based on the company case studies and hands-on experience in different domains

Azure AI Bot Service
Azure also offers a service used for creating AI-powered bots for various platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. It offers a wide array of configuration options, such as adding keywords and menus for users. Chatbots created with this tool enhance customer engagement by providing 24/7 automated support and personalized interactions. It also seamlessly integrates with other tools and services from the Azure ecosystem, serving as a perfect part of complex cloud-based solutions.

Azure AI Anomaly Detector
Here is an efficient Azure AI service used for finding data anomalies. By detecting unusual patterns in data, this service enables proactive issue resolution and improved decision-making. It leverages advanced machine learning algorithms to detect anomalies in time-series data, reducing the need for manual monitoring. Azure AI Anomaly Detector integrates easily with existing systems, offering scalable and reliable anomaly detection for various applications such as payment systems that require features for fraud detection and monitoring other suspicious activities.

Azure offers great potential with its AI development tools and AI-powered services. Despite their great diversity, there are several universal practices that will help you leverage the benefits of MS Azure AI.

Microsoft provides various sets of documentation and best practices aimed at helping developers master their AI products and maximize the efficiency of using such tools. Relying on these materials is a very good idea because such documents offer the most accurate and reliable information provided by seasoned Azure experts. All the information in such documents is up-to-date, and there is a solid number of completely secure best practices. Also, as long as Azure continuously evolves, you can easily find information on updates and new features on time by tracking the official documentation. Finally, by following established guidelines, you ensure a consistent approach to development, which positively affects software stability, manageability, and efficiency.

Azure offers a great range of pre-built models that may be used by software development teams as starting points for building their own custom machine learning models. For example, you can choose from the model catalog offered by Azure AI Studio. Their usage will provide you with a strong foundation of tested and optimized algorithms. Development teams can use immediate functionality for common tasks, like language processing or image recognition, to save time and resources. This is especially useful during prototype development or idea validation. Later, software engineers will have an opportunity to fine-tune and customize these models in order to accustom them to the company’s specific needs.

When it comes to developing, testing, and customizing machine learning models, Azure Notebooks prove to be very useful. This service offers AI development teams a cloud-based collaborative environment that seamlessly integrates with Azure’s machine learning tools. The developers can apply Azure Notebooks to prototype, test, and refine ML models using scalable compute resources and built-in support for popular libraries.

Using Azure AI services in combination can bring you many benefits because the combined strengths of multiple services help developers create more powerful and comprehensive solutions. For example, combining Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services for natural language processing with Azure Machine Learning for model training and deployment enables your AI development team to build an intelligent chatbot. You will receive a smart chatbot that can be optimized and trained over time to provide more diversified and informative responses to the users. The key point is not to limit your efforts to a single Azure AI/ML tool. Azure’s AI services are meant to be used in combinations. As long as they easily integrate with each other, make sure to select a combination of services that correspond to your specific needs.

AI is on the rise, and by leveraging AI-powered products from one of the global technology leaders, you can get a solid collection of AI benefits, such as automation, ability to build a comprehensive system of services, innovation, improved system manageability, and cost-efficiency in the long run. The two factors that matter most are the choice of the most fitting tools and the right team experienced in AI software development. As for the first point, the list of Azure AI services provided above will come in handy.

As for the second question, the best way is to rely on teams with proven AI/ML expertise and solid expertise with the Microsoft tech stack. Leobit, a Microsoft Solutions Partner and a company recognized as a top provider of cloud development services by Clutch, offers teams of ingenious AI/ML developers with strong cloud expertise capable of implementing the best solutions. For example, our team used LLMs to create our own AI-powered employees, such as Leora.

Contact us to start your AI transformation now and leverage a vast cloud-based system enhanced with powerful Microsoft Azure AI services!