Kategorie: Microsoft Azure

AI on the road: Azure OpenAI Service helps drive better decision making for the transportation sector

Since the invention of the wheel in 3500 BCE, the world has become an increasingly fast-moving place. The Industrial Revolution introduced steam-powered trains and ships, revolutionizing land and sea travel. The 20th century saw the advent of automobiles and airplanes, drastically reducing travel time and transforming global connectivity. And today, AI is supporting how quickly, and intelligently businesses can move both goods and people and there is no slowing down in sight: global AI in transportation is expected to reach $23.11 billion by 2032.1

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Azure OpenAI Service is driving change in transportation

Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service is supporting the transportation industry through innovative business applications. TomTom’s Digital Cockpit, powered by Azure, offers an immersive in-car infotainment system, enhancing driver interaction that the company claims reduces costs. CarMax uses Azure OpenAI Service to streamline content creation for its car research pages. Fraport integrates AI with Azure OpenAI Service to automate operations and assist employees, preparing for future growth despite workforce reductions, and Alstom leverages AI to enhance operational efficiency across its value chain, supporting its vision of Engineering 4.0 and improving specification quality and project management. All four mark significant strides towards smarter, more efficient transportation solutions. Read on to learn how each Microsoft customer below uses Azure OpenAI Service to improve business operations.

TomTom brings AI-powered, talking cars to life with AzureTomTom has developed the Digital Cockpit, an immersive in-car infotainment system that automobile manufacturers can customize, potentially reducing costs by up to 80%. This system utilizes Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Kubernetes Service to provide seamless control and interaction for drivers. TomTom’s goal is to surpass the smartphone experience by enabling conversational infotainment.The development group for Digital Cockpit was reduced from 10 to 3 people, and query response times improved significantly from 12 seconds to just 2.5 seconds. In evaluating 300 different scenarios, the AI assistant correctly understood and answered 95% of complex driver requests. TomTom Digital Cockpit is now available to car manufacturers, enabling them to customize the system to their brand—accelerating time-to-market and retaining brand ownership of the driver experience.

CarMax puts customers first with car research tools powered by Azure OpenAI ServiceSince its inception in 1993, CarMax has evolved from a groundbreaking startup to the leading used car retailer in the United States, selling over 11 million vehicles. To continue its trajectory of innovation, CarMax has leveraged Azure OpenAI Service to streamline content creation for its car research pages. This collaboration has significantly enhanced CarMax’s digital tools and capabilities, allowing the company to produce AI-generated content that not only aids customers in their car-buying research but also boosts search engine rankings. For example, generating summaries for 5,000 car pages, which would have taken about 11 years manually, was accomplished in just a few months using Azure OpenAI Service. This efficiency also resulted in an 80% editorial review approval rate for the AI-generated content.The integration of Azure OpenAI Service has brought substantial benefits, including cost and time savings, improved content management, and the ability to scale and deploy custom models. The service has enabled CarMax to summarize extensive customer reviews into concise, readable sentences, enhancing user experience and driving more traffic to the website through improved SEO performance. As a result, CarMax’s search engine metrics have seen an upward trend.

FraportGPT leads the way to the airport of the future: Fraport makes employees’ daily tasks easier with the help of Azure OpenAI ServiceFraport AG, which operates Frankfurt Airport in Germany and holds stakes in 30 other airports worldwide, is integrating AI to automate and streamline operations. FraportGPT, a chatbot powered by Azure OpenAI Service, is designed to assist employees across an array of different specialized areas. The chatbot helps programmers create code statements, it summarizes lengthy texts for legal staff, and it assists human resource and administrative personnel with drafting emails and documents. By utilizing AI, Fraport aims to address the challenge of a projected 30% workforce reduction due to aging while simultaneously planning for a 30% growth in operations over the next few years.FraportGPT’s deployment has been met with enthusiasm from employees, who have begun using it in diverse areas such as rental management and administrative functions, enhancing efficiency and productivity.

Alstom integrates generative AI to its business processes with Azure AI technologiesAlstom, a global leader in the railway sector, has integrated Microsoft generative AI into its operations to enhance efficiency, meet its unprecedented backlog, and improve customer satisfaction. This AI-driven approach aims to streamline processes across all stages of Alstom’s value chain—including business opportunities, contract specifications, design, manufacturing, testing, supply chain, installation, and maintenance. Since 2020, Alstom has been leveraging AI to support its vision of Engineering 4.0 and the Augmented Workforce, ensuring that employees can use AI copilots to generate engineering assets more quickly and cost-effectively. For instance, AI helps in writing specifications for railway systems, and can improve specification quality by 25% and reduce costs associated with poor-quality requirements. Alstom’s in-house AI tool, supported by Azure OpenAI Service, facilitates a wide range of business functions—including human resource, finance, and project management—with over a thousand users conducting more than 15,000 operations monthly. The tool’s capabilities in content generation, translation, and document intelligence enable massive data processing, thereby enhancing operational efficiency.

Azure OpenAI Service is proud to support Microsoft customers like TomTom, CarMax, Fraport, and Alstom in enhancing navigation, optimizing logistics, and improving operational efficiency, and bolstering better customer support, research, and project management.

Our commitment to responsible AI

Organizations across industries are leveraging Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft Copilot services and capabilities to drive growth, increase productivity, and create value-added experiences. From advancing medical breakthroughs to streamlining manufacturing operations, our customers trust that their data is protected by robust privacy protections and data governance practices. As our customers continue to expand their use of our AI solutions, they can be confident that their valuable data is safeguarded by industry-leading data governance and privacy practices in the most trusted cloud on the market today.  

At Microsoft, we have a long-standing practice of protecting our customers’ information. Our approach to responsible AI is built on a foundation of privacy, and we remain dedicated to upholding core values of privacy, security, and safety in all our generative AI products and solutions.   

Get started with Azure OpenAI Service 

Apply for access to Azure OpenAI Service by completing this form. 

Learn about Azure OpenAI Service and the latest enhancements. 

Get started with GPT-4 in Azure OpenAI Service in Microsoft Learn. 

Read our partner announcement blog, Empowering partners to develop AI-powered apps and experiences with ChatGPT in Azure OpenAI Service. 

Learn how to use the new Chat Completions API (in preview) and model versions for ChatGPT and GPT-4 models in Azure OpenAI Service.

Learn more about Azure AI Content Safety.

Explore capabilities and solutions with Azure OpenAI Service

1 Precedence Research, Artificial Intelligence in Transportation Market Size to Reach USD 23.11 Bn by 2032, September 2023.
The post AI on the road: Azure OpenAI Service helps drive better decision making for the transportation sector appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

Enable location analytics with Azure Maps

Imagine unlocking a treasure trove of insights from your existing data sets, that makes you look at the physical world differently. That’s what location analytics enables. Any data that has a geographic aspect to it is often called “location data” and is already present in about 80% of enterprise data. It is generated from customer databases, smartphones, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, connected vehicles, GPS units, credit card transactions, and more—this data is everywhere. Location analytics is the science of adding and analyzing layers of location data alongside your existing enterprise data to derive unique insights.  

Organizations use location analytics to create many of the experiences you use every day—like when you are booking a hotel in a different country, often hotel prices are automatically available to you in your currency. Behind the scenes, hotel companies are using location services to convert your IP address to your country and to display hotel locations on a map. This helps them to seamlessly provide the relevant information for you, enhancing your online booking experience.   

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Organizations across industries leveraging Azure Maps APIs  

With Microsoft Azure Maps, organizations worldwide are using location data to create similar applications and experiences for mobile and web to gain unique insights, solve critical challenges, and improve their businesses. Azure Maps provides a suite of location services that enable developers and enterprises to build scalable, location-enabled, and map-based experiences. 

Services available through Azure Maps APIs unlock a wide variety of use cases across different sectors. Here’s a quick highlight of few of our services and how they are being used:  

Did you know Azure Maps is HIPAA compliant?

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Data enrichment services enable adding more information to the data that you already have. The Geocoding service is used to convert physical addresses into coordinates, and to convert coordinates into addresses (known as reverse geocoding). Azure Maps Geocoding API enables users to also save the geocoded addresses for as long as they have an active Azure account, so they don’t have to reuse the service each time and incur incremental costs. Once converted, addresses can be visualized on a map using the Get Map Tiles API service for further analysis. A popular use case for these location services is in the healthcare industry where organizations use the geocoding API to convert patients’ addresses into coordinates, and then use the Map Tiles service to visualize where patients are located on a map to find the nearest health care facilities for patients. Further, certain ambulance operators are leveraging location analytics to pre-emptively place ambulances at predictive ‘hot spot’ locations to reduce emergency response times. Azure Maps is built on Microsoft Azure and is fully compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) providing healthcare companies with peace of mind when dealing with highly sensitive and confidential patient information. 

Routing services are used to calculate the distance or time required to get from one point to another. One of the most prominent use cases for routing is in the logistics industry where organizations use routing APIs to create the most efficient vehicle routes to deliver goods. Optimized routes help businesses in saving time and costs—enabling operational efficiencies. Recently, Azure partnered with Nvidia to use Nvidia cuOpt for multi-itinerary optimization. Often big logistics companies are dealing with hundreds of drivers and dropping locations and need to create a matrix of possible routes to pick the most efficient ones. With Nvidia’s cuOpt, a state-of-the-art, graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated engine, the time taken to create and analyze the matrix of routes is reduced from multiple minutes to sub seconds.  

Weather data services provide daily, historical, normal, and actuals for any latitude and longitude while also providing temperature, air quality, and storm information. The weather service also provides valuable data to inform prediction and modeling based on current and forecasted data enabling development of applications that are weather-informed. A popular use case is seen in the retail industry where organizations use historical and current weather data to forecast weather conditions. This information helps them make informed sales and operational decisions such as inventory planning and pricing. Retailers also use weather data to create more targeted ads and promotions, improving their overall marketing campaign effectiveness. 

Get started with Azure Maps

Azure Maps is designed for compatibility, enabling you to connect with a range of Azure services like Azure IoT, Power BI, Microsoft Azure Active Directory, Azure Data Explorer, Power Apps, Synapse ML, and more. With minimal coding required, you can effortlessly enhance your applications with powerful mapping and location analytics capabilities.    

Visit the Azure Maps product page to learn more.

Explore our collection of hundreds of Azure Maps samples that have been made open source on GitHub. Build your location-aware solutions with a seamless development experience.

Leverage the Azure Maps Tech Community blog page to stay abreast of all new tools and technologies being added to Azure Maps.   

 If you already have an Azure subscription, you just need to add an Azure Maps resource to your project and use that instance to call Azure Maps APIs. Visit the Azure Maps pricing page to explore pricing options. Pay only for what you use and easily deploy your Azure Maps service into an existing Azure subscription.

If you don’t have an Azure subscription, sign up for it here and follow the steps above. 

Learn more about Azure Maps

The post Enable location analytics with Azure Maps appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

10 ways to impact business velocity through Azure OpenAI Service

The phrase, “time is money,” is commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who first used it in his essay “Advice to a Young Tradesman,” published in 1748. Franklin was addressing the economic value of time, a concept increasingly relevant when discussing AI’s impact on business today. AI is adept at processing and analyzing troves of data much faster than a human brain—enabling quicker, more informed decision-making. Leaders who embrace AI now and take action to understand it, experiment with it, and envision how it can solve hard problems are going to run companies that thrive in an AI world.1 From automating routine tasks to providing deep insights through data analysis, AI technologies are enabling businesses to make quicker, more informed decisions, driving growth and competitive advantage.

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10 ways AI can turbocharge business efficiency

Automating repetitive tasks: AI can handle mundane and repetitive tasks such as data entry, scheduling, and email sorting.

Real-time data analysis: AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data in real-time, providing immediate insights and allowing businesses to make faster, data-driven decisions.

Predictive analytics: AI can forecast trends and behaviors based on historical data, enabling companies to anticipate market changes and customer needs more rapidly.

Customer support chatbots: AI-powered chatbots provide instant customer service, addressing inquiries and resolving issues without human intervention.

Supply chain optimization: AI can predict demand, optimize inventory levels, and streamline logistics.

Fraud detection: AI systems can quickly detect and respond to fraudulent activities by analyzing transaction patterns and identifying anomalies in real-time.

Personalized marketing: AI can tailor marketing campaigns to individual preferences and behaviors, increasing engagement and conversion rates more swiftly.

Enhanced recruitment processes: AI can screen resumes, conduct initial interviews, and identify the best candidates faster than traditional methods.

Process automation: Robotic Process Automation (RPA) driven by AI can execute business processes faster and with fewer errors, from financial transactions to regulatory compliance.

Product development: AI accelerates product development cycles by simulating different design scenarios, optimizing prototypes, and predicting performance outcomes.

Below, we look at three Microsoft customers who used Azure OpenAI Service to accelerate the speed at which they do business.  

Akbank empowers staff to search through 10,000 records in seconds with Azure OpenAI ServiceAkbank, one of Türkiye’s largest banks, has significantly improved its customer support operations by integrating Azure OpenAI Service. Whereas their customer representatives previously had to search through a hefty 10,000-article knowledge base in hopes of finding correct responses, they now interact with an AI chatbot that generates correct answers 90% of the time. This integration saves three minutes per interaction, thus enhancing both the quality and accuracy of the support provided. Akbank has also incorporated proactive suggestions into the chatbot, enabling staff to get faster responses and continually improve customer support.

Serving customers 78% faster: VOCALLS’ voicebots supercharge call handing with Azure OpenAIVOCALLS, a Prague and London-based telecommunications company, leverages Microsoft Azure AI technologies to support its customer service with AI-powered voicebots. Specializing in conversational AI solutions, VOCALLS automates over 50 million interactions annually, improving customer experiences for companies like Estafeta. Estafeta, a logistics pioneer in Latin America, saw a 78% reduction in average handling time and a 120% increase in answered calls after deploying VOCALLS’ voicebot, Beatriz. This voicebot provides immediate support, eliminating wait times and boosting customer satisfaction scores.

RepsMate empowers businesses to create super agents by leveraging Azure’s AI superpowersAs a member of the Microsoft for Startups program, RepsMate has leveraged Microsoft’s networks, support, and the Azure Marketplace to gain traction in Eastern Europe. RepsMate’s solution, driven by AI and data analysis, has led to significant efficiency gains, reducing average handling times by 12%, decreasing chat durations by 20 to 30%, and increasing first-call resolution rates by 5 to 10%. Additionally, RepsMate has automated up to 25% of interactions with predefined answers, enhancing both speed and accuracy. Additionally, their strategic use of Microsoft’s full suite of technologies, has allowed RepsMate to train large datasets faster and avoid unnecessary costs, further enhancing efficiency.

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A faster more efficient future

Examples like those of Akbank, VOCALLS, and RepsMate demonstrate the impact of AI on business speed and productivity. By integrating AI solutions like Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, companies can achieve faster decision-making, optimize their processes, and better support customer experiences. As businesses continue to adopt and innovate with AI, they’re in a better position to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving market.

Our commitment to responsible AI

Organizations across industries are leveraging Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot services and capabilities to drive growth, increase productivity, and create value-added experiences. From advancing medical breakthroughs to streamlining manufacturing operations, our customers trust that their data is protected by robust privacy protections and data governance practices. As our customers continue to expand their use of our AI solutions, they can be confident that their valuable data is safeguarded by industry-leading data governance and privacy practices in the most trusted cloud on the market today.  

At Microsoft, we have a long-standing practice of protecting our customers’ information. Our approach to responsible AI is built on a foundation of privacy, and we remain dedicated to upholding core values of privacy, security, and safety in all our generative AI products and solutions.   

Get started with Azure OpenAI Service 

Apply for access to Azure OpenAI Service by completing this form. 

Learn about Azure OpenAI Service and the latest enhancements. 

Get started with GPT-4 in Azure OpenAI Service in Microsoft Learn. 

Read our partner announcement blog, empowering partners to develop AI-powered apps and experiences with ChatGPT in Azure OpenAI Service. 

Learn how to use the new Chat Completions API (in preview) and model versions for ChatGPT and GPT-4 models in Azure OpenAI Service.

Learn more about Azure AI Content Safety.

Explore possibilities with Azure OpenAI Service

1 Harvard Business Review, Build a Winning AI Strategy For Your Business, July 14, 2023.
The post 10 ways to impact business velocity through Azure OpenAI Service appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

Build your own copilot with Microsoft Azure AI Studio  

In the rapidly evolving world of AI technology, Microsoft Azure AI Studio, now generally available, is empowering organizations to create their own AI copilots. With AI Studio, organizations can customize and build their own copilot to meet their unique needs.  

We’re excited to see organizations across various sectors staying competitive, driving innovation, and transforming their operations.  No matter your use case, AI Studio accelerates the generative AI development lifecycle, empowering organizations to build and shape the future with AI.  

Build a copilot to streamline call center operations 

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Built cutting-edge applications

Vodafone used AI Studio to modernize their existing customer service chatbot TOBi, and to develop a new copilot with a conversational AI search interface, called SuperAgent, to support Vodafone’s human agents when responding to complex customer inquiries.  

TOBi serves customers by addressing common questions like account status and simple technical troubleshooting. SuperAgent involves summarizing call center transcripts, which condenses lengthy calls into brief summaries stored in the customer relationship management system (CRM). This allows agents to quickly understand the reason for a customer’s previous call and detect new issues, improving response times and customer satisfaction. The system is fully automated, with calls transcribed and summarized by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service in Azure AI Studio, providing actionable insights for agents. 

Together, Vodafone’s call center is getting impressive results, TOBi manages nearly 45 million customer calls a month, fully resolving 70%. On average, customer call times have been reduced by at least one minute, saving customers and agents’ valuable time.2  

Part of using new technologies is experimentation and the ability to easily collaborate. With Azure AI Studio, you can interact with other people and with projects through a code-first approach to seamlessly explore, build, test, and deploy, using cutting-edge AI tools and machine learning models.” 
—Ahmed Elsayed, CIO UK & Europe Digital Engineering Director, Vodafone Group

Build a copilot to improve customer experiences 

H&R Block built AI Tax Assist, “a generative AI experience that streamlines online tax filing by enabling clients to ask questions during the workflow”, was developed with AI Studio.  

AI Tax Assist addresses individuals’ questions as they prepare and file their taxes and can answer tax theory questions or offer navigation instructions when needed. It can provide answers on tax forms, deductions, and credits to help customers maximize potential refunds and minimize tax liability. AI Tax Assist also answers free-form, tax-related questions, providing dynamic responses to customer questions. 

“Since launching the AI Tax Assist experience, we’ve received positive customer feedback and seen increased usage throughout the 2024 tax season,” says Jody Vanarsdale, Director of Product Management at H&R Block. “We’ve been most pleased to see customers complete the entire filing process quickly and without leaving the app.” 

With Azure AI Studio, our devs can code faster, so they had time to ‘experiment’ to fine-tune features like enabling individuals to ask as many questions as needed conversationally and the ability to revisit previous conversation threads. It’s an approach we’re continuing—to push innovation and deliver the best experiences.” 
—Aditya Thadani, Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Platforms, H&R Block 

Build a copilot to boost employee productivity  

Sweco, a leading European architecture and engineering firm, recognized the need for a custom copilot solution to help employees in the flow of their work. They chose AI Studio to build their own copilot, SwecoGPT, which automates document creation and analysis, delivers advanced search, and provides language translation.  

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Shah Muhammad, Head of AI Innovation at Sweco, appreciates the “one-click deployment of the models in Azure AI Studio and that it makes Microsoft Azure AI offerings transparent and available to the user.”1 Since its deployment, nearly half of Sweco’s employees use SwecoGPT and report increased productivity, giving them more time to focus on creativity and helping customers. 

With Azure AI Studio, [we were] able to rapidly develop a proof of concept (POC) to show how a SwecoGPT could look, operate, and benefit our consultants and our business as a whole. This just showcases the power and scalability of Azure AI.” 
 —David Hunter, Head of AI and Automation, Sweco

Microsoft Azure AI Studio

Develop and deploy generative AI responsibly

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Build on a foundation of trust  

In the journey of AI integration, trust is table stakes. With Azure AI, you can confidently create a copilot knowing your data is always your data. Your data is never used to train the models.  

We owe it to our clients to handle all their information responsibly. Microsoft has shown a lot of leadership in establishing those principles of responsible AI, maintaining clients’ trust, maintaining privacy, and ensuring that any capabilities we deliver are consistent with our promise of expertise.” 
—Aditya Thadani, Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Platforms, H&R Block 

Your organizational data is encrypted in your Microsoft Azure subscription and protected by Microsoft’s comprehensive enterprise compliance and security controls.  

We are a company that uses a lot of Microsoft products, and we trust Microsoft for its security, compliance, and leadership in generative AI.”
—David Hunter, Head of AI and Automation, Sweco 

AI Studio is designed with responsible AI principles and practices in mind. Build your copilot with technologies, templates, and best practices to help manage risk, improve accuracy, protect privacy, reinforce transparency, and simplify compliance. Safeguard your copilot with Azure AI Content Safety’s configurable filters and controls. 

Beyond the technology, the Microsoft commitment to responsible AI was a differentiator,” says Garcia. “As we work with new technologies to build the inclusive digital communities of tomorrow, this is a critical foundation.”
—Ignacio Garcia, CIO Italy & Global Director Data Analytics and AI, Vodafone Group 

Build for the future 

Azure AI is where innovators are creating the future, and we’re continuing to invest in our AI Studio platform to provide cutting edge services and tools to our customers. As we look ahead to what’s next for custom copilots, we’re excited about how agents, like Azure OpenAI Assistants application programming interface (API) can accelerate and improve custom copilot development. Using Azure OpenAI models, developers can provide specific instructions to tune AI capabilities and access multiple tools in parallel, including code interpreter and file search, or custom tools built and accessed through function calling.   

We’re excited to see what customers build next.  

I can’t wait to see what we’re doing in six months or a year from now. The potential of Azure AI Studio for us—and what we can do with it for our customers—is infinite.”
—Shah Muhammad, Head of AI Innovation, Sweco 

Get started with Azure AI Studio  

Explore AI Studio.

Watched the recorded session from Build.

Learn about the Azure OpenAI Assistants API.

Sources

1 Microsoft Customer Story-Sweco Group empowers its architects and engineers with a timesaving AI assistant built in Azure AI Studio 

2 Microsoft Customer Story-Vodafone amplifies call center innovation, customer service, and employee inclusion with Azure AI
The post Build your own copilot with Microsoft Azure AI Studio   appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

Plans on Microsoft Learn: Your online blueprint for building AI and Azure skills

We get it—you have a mountain of online learning resources available at your fingertips, and with that information overload you can find yourself lost in a maze of unorganized materials. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce Plans on Microsoft Learn, a new tool that provides guided learning for top Azure tools and solutions.

This innovative approach provides a structured roadmap for individuals or teams to acquire new skills, offering focused content, clear milestones, and support to speed up the learning process. In this blog we’ll introduce you to Plans on Microsoft Learn and explore a handful of curated Plans to get you started!

Reimaging online learning to keep pace with technology

Developing in-demand technical skills is crucial for career advancement, but finding the right starting point can be overwhelming. Plans on Microsoft Learn helps individuals, teams, and organizations reach their learning goals faster, offering curated content, milestones that you can accomplish in the recommended time or at your own pace, and automated reminders to keep you motivated.

Build new skills with expertly designed learning paths, or create your own Plans tailored to your specific needs. Team leaders can easily manage and track their organization’s progress with the ability to copy and administer existing Plans.

Explore an expansive collection of AI-related Plans

We have a growing library of Plans on Microsoft Learn designed to accelerate your learning journey:

Explore Microsoft Learn Career Paths: Unlock curated Plans for 15 in-demand career tracks.

Dive into Microsoft Learn for Organizations: Access eight Plans focused on the hottest tech topics and team training, including building skills for Microsoft’s powerful AI services.

We are developing more Plans all the time, but let’s go in-depth on a few to show you the full value of this new skilling experience.

Make your data AI ready with Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is our powerful analytics platform designed to simplify the process of turning data into insights. Unifying data science, real-time analytics, and business intelligence, Fabric offers a seamless end-to-end experience, eliminating the need for businesses to piece together tools from different vendors.

The goal of this Official Plan is to help you use AI to unify your intelligent data and analytics on the Fabric platform, and has learning milestones that include:

Ingest data: Learn various methods for bringing data into Fabric, including shortcuts, pipelines, and dataflows.

Transform data: Transform data using dataflows, procedures, and notebooks.

Store data: Learn how to store processed data in both the Lakehouse and Data Warehouse for efficient retrieval.

Expose data: Discover how to create reusable semantic models in Power BI to make the transformed data accessible for analysis.

Migrate and modernize with Azure cloud-scale databases to enable AI

Migrating and modernizing with Azure helps individuals and organizations seamlessly transition their workloads and applications to the cloud. With step-by-step guidance and tools for migrating on-premises infrastructure and data to Azure, you can update legacy applications and take advantage of Azure’s advanced cloud-native features.

This Official Plan is about migrating and securing Windows Server, SQL Server, and Linux Estate to Azure, with particular focus on:

Cloud-native and Hybrid Solutions: Learn to create and manage data platforms that work effectively in cloud-based and on-premises environments.

SQL Server and Azure SQL Services: Gain hands-on experience with SQL Server, Azure Database for MySQL, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL to build and manage robust database solutions tailored to your application needs.

Azure Arc for Multi-Cloud: Understand how Azure Arc enables SQL Server across different cloud environments.

Performance Optimization: Understand strategies to maximize the speed and efficiency of data platform solutions.

Data for the era of AI: Build intelligent apps with Azure Cosmos DB

The need for intelligent apps is surging as businesses and individuals seek to harness the power of AI and machine learning. These apps offer the ability to deliver personalized experiences, analyze complex data for better decision-making, and streamline workflows for increased efficiency. As AI technology evolves, intelligent apps will become even more indispensable, revolutionizing how we interact with technology in our daily lives.

This Official Plan, focuses on building and modernizing AI-powered intelligent apps, and includes lessons on:

Database selection: Learn to choose the right Azure Cosmos DB option for your AI application.

AI integration: Understand strategies for incorporating AI into your technical or non-technical solutions.

AI Copilot development: Explore how to build an AI-powered assistant using vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB.

Accelerate Developer Productivity with GitHub and Azure for Developers

AI-powered tools offer immense potential to accelerate developer productivity by streamlining coding, automating tasks, and providing intelligent recommendations that save time. By embracing these tools, developers can focus on innovation and strategic problem-solving rather than mundane coding tasks.

With this Official Plan you’ll learn about coding in the cloud with GitHub Copilot, our AI-powered assistant that enables developers to focus on the more creative and strategic aspects of their work:

Coding with GitHub and Azure: Seamlessly integrate these platforms and leverage GitHub Copilot to streamline your development workflow.

DevOps planning: Identify the critical GitHub features to optimize your organization’s enterprise DevOps strategy.

Build communities: Promote collaboration, establish clear guidelines, and uphold security standards within your developer community.

Improve Reliability, Security and Performance on Azure

Building resiliency into your cloud infrastructure is crucial for maximizing efficiency and controlling costs. By carefully aligning resources to match your workload demands, you can eliminate waste and avoid unnecessary expenses for unused capacity.

This Official Plan demonstrates how to optimize your cloud architecture and workloads so your organization can invest in ongoing growth and innovation, and includes teaching on:

Tools and frameworks: Analyze and improve workloads and environments using FinOps Framework, Cloud Adoption Framework, Well Architected Framework, Cloud Center of Excellence, and more.

Landing zones: Leverage best practices from the Cloud Adoption Framework and deploy landing zones to align business and technical strategies for successful cloud adoption.

Resilient workloads: Manage and optimize your environment to maximize business value, cloud security, new workload migration, modernization, and reliability.

Migrate and run VMware in Azure with Azure VMware Solution

Migrating your VMware workloads to the cloud can unlock new levels of flexibility, scalability, and cost optimization. The Azure VMware Solution allows you to seamlessly migrate and run your VMware workloads natively on Azure, leveraging familiar VMware tools and skills.

This official Plan guides you through the process, ensuring a smooth transition and effective management of your VMware environments on Azure, including comprehensive instruction on:

Azure VMware Solution basics: Understand the core concepts, benefits, and architecture of running VMware on Azure.

Migration strategies: Explore various approaches, tools, and best practices to ensure a smooth transition of your VMware workloads to Azure VMware Solution—including both live and cold migrations—to minimize downtime and disruption.

Deployment and configuration: Get detailed guidance on setting up and managing your Azure VMware Solution environment, including networking, storage, and security to ensure optimal performance.

Begin your AI learning journey today

You and your team deserve better tools to get skilled and stay competitive in today’s fast-moving market. Visit our AI learning hub for resources to help your team understand the potential of AI, develop AI skills, and successfully adopt AI solutions. There you’ll also find eight current AI-related Plans and complete guidance on how to get started!

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The post Plans on Microsoft Learn: Your online blueprint for building AI and Azure skills appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

8 key VMware questions answered at the Azure VMware Solution digital event

The 2023 changeups in the VMware landscape have created uncertainty and spurred discussions about long-term strategy—your company may be wondering what the future holds for the VMware workloads running in your datacenter. Over the past 25 years, many organizations like yours have built their on-premises IT foundation on VMware—and today the cost of remaining on-premises is higher than ever.

Your competitors are likely shifting their investments to the cloud—and positioning themselves to take advantage of the increasingly mainstream adoption of AI. As you consider pivoting your strategy, it’s crucial to find a way to maximize your existing investments while also choosing a platform that can support your future business needs and applications.

How can you find a path forward for your VMWare workloads that won’t subject you to massive price increases or business disruption? Can you rehost your VMware workloads without compromising on security, control, or budget? Can you use this moment to future-proof your IT platform so you are ready to support the technology changes that will arise over the next 25 years?

You’re not alone in this dilemma. These questions are top of mind for many leaders and practitioners facing similar challenges as they try to navigate the changing landscape of VMware and the cloud. I’m excited to announce that my team will be hosting a free digital event on Tuesday, July 16, 2024 from 9:00 AM–11:00 AM PDT around Azure VMware Solution. I hope you’ll join us to get answers to your questions and learn all the options available for your VMware workloads.

Register now for The Future of VMware Is in Azure to explore strategies and solutions for VMware workloads and learn about Azure VMware Solution—a fully managed VMware environment operated and supported by Microsoft. Azure VMware Solution offers price protection and is designed to help your organization quickly migrate using existing VMware skills while learning new Azure skills.

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Move or extend on-premises VMware environments to Azure without refactoring.

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Join me on July 16 as we discuss the top-of-mind questions that many VMware customers are asking:

How do we avoid big price increases—is there a way to get price protection? Attend the keynote to hear about limited-time offers to secure predictable pricing and cost savings with Azure VMware Solution. Learn about price protection—with lock-in pricing for up to five years with reserved instances, and why Azure is the most cost-effective destination for the Windows Server and SQL Server workloads that you may be running on VMware.

How can we migrate faster while reducing costs? Learn about tailored programs such as VMware license portability benefits, and how the VMware Rapid Migration Plan can help reduce the cost and time it takes for organizations to migrate to Azure VMware Solution.

How do we find a long-term solution for our VMware workloads? Learn how you can set your organization up for success with Azure VMware Solution—offering the fastest path to the cloud with the cost savings, flexibility, scalability, and performance of Azure.

What are our options to get to the cloud with minimal disruption? Learn how to move VMware workloads to Azure “as is” with minimal need for refactoring. Streamline your migration and equip your practitioners to continue using familiar skills and technologies while adopting new cloud competencies.

How can we give developers access to cutting-edge tools for innovation? Learn how making a strategic shift to Azure VMware Solution eliminates routine maintenance and minimizes administrative tasks, while giving developers proximity to the latest data and AI services—allowing your IT teams to redirect focus toward initiatives that directly contribute to business value.

Where can we see real-world use cases and get practical advice from companies that have successfully migrated? Join Brett Tanzer’s fireside chat with the Deputy CIO of the State of Alaska and get insights from their large-scale cloud migration project. Also, watch a demo deployment and ask product experts your specific questions in the live chat Q&A.

What if we have workloads that need to stay on-premises? Learn about hybrid cloud options for VMware workloads. For workloads that cannot be migrated, learn about solutions that function effectively at the edge, bringing Azure cloud services to your on-premises environment.

How can we empower IT practitioners to make the move to Azure? Attend technical sessions and see demos on networking configurations, business continuity plans, and integration with Azure’s extensive portfolio of over 200 services. Also, hear about the newest learning resources, including the Azure VMware Solution Microsoft Learn Challenge.

The Future of VMware Is in Azure
Join us for talks from industry experts, technical sessions, and a live Qu0026amp;A.

Register now

Here’s a preview of the sessions on July 16:

Keynote address—The Future of VMware Is in Azure

Join Microsoft Vice President of Azure Solutions and Ecosystem, Brett Tanzer, and myself for an overview of all the options for your VMware workloads. Learn migration strategies, hear insights and advice from a Microsoft customer, watch an Azure VMware Solution deployment demo, and ask your questions at the live Q&A. Stay for deep-dive technical sessions with topics tailored for VMware administrators.

Speakers: Brent Tanzer and Liam Sosinsky

Technical sessions—After the keynote, fireside chat, and demo, stay for sessions with detailed technical aspects of migrating VMware workloads, networking configurations, business continuity plans, and integration with an extensive portfolio of over 200 cloud services from Azure.

Securing your future: Migrate applications and data to Azure VMware Solution. Learn the strategic benefits of moving apps and data to Azure VMware Solution. See a migration demo and hear customer evidence and details on implementing a Zero Trust security model and role-based access control (RBAC) within Azure VMware Solution.

Speakers: Scott Gruenemeier and Joe Sarabia

Building end-to-end networking with Azure VMware Solution. Get an understanding of the Azure VMware Solution networking architecture and see a demo of key connectivity patterns from your software-defined data center (SDDC) in Azure VMware Solution to your on-premises environment. This session also covers default NSX-T topology, native security capabilities offered by Azure VMware Solution, integrations with other services, and design best practices for workload security.

Speaker: Kenyon Hensler

Implementing a robust business continuity and disaster recovery plan. In this session, you’ll learn how to implement your business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy with Azure VMware Solution. Get tips and best practices for business continuity and disaster recovery and take a deeper dive into common scenarios, such as BCDR strategies when moving to Azure as well as strategies for BCDR within Azure.

Speaker: Melissa Palmer

Unlocking Azure cloud services with Azure VMware solution. See demos of how to use services on the Azure platform to expand the capabilities of your applications on Azure VMware Solution—without changes to your existing app architecture. Learn about your options for Azure platform as a service (PaaS), as well as options to access to AI capabilities and a wide variety of cloud services using Azure VMware Solution.

Speaker: Joe Sarabia

Hybrid cloud options for VMware workloads. Explore hybrid cloud solutions as a complement to the public cloud. This session will show you how to combine Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI, and Arc-enabled vSphere with Azure VMware Solution to create a seamless, adaptive cloud experience. Learn when and how to implement these innovative technologies to optimize your cloud strategy and stay ahead of the curve.

Speaker: Shriram Natarajan

The Future of VMware Is in Azure

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

9:00 AM–11:00 AM PDT

Register now

The post 8 key VMware questions answered at the Azure VMware Solution digital event appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

Build exciting career opportunities with new Azure skilling options 

Microsoft Build is more than just a tech conference—it’s a celebration of innovation, a catalyst for growth, and a gateway to unlocking your professional potential through skilling opportunities on Microsoft Learn. In this blog, we’ll look back at some of the most exciting Microsoft Azure tools that were featured at Build 2024 and put you on the path to attain proficiency.  

Start your skilling journey today on Microsoft Learn

Build intelligent apps with AI and cloud-native technologies

Learn more

Jump to a section: 

Unleash the power of AI by mastering intelligent app development 

Empower your developers to achieve unprecedented productivity 

Accelerate your cloud journey with seamless Azure migration 

Master cloud-scale data analysis for powerful business insights 

Unlock maximum cloud efficiency and savings with Azure 

Unleash the power of AI by mastering intelligent app development 

Azure provides a comprehensive ecosystem of services, tools, and infrastructure tailored for the entire AI lifecycle. At Build we highlighted how your team can efficiently develop, scale, and optimize intelligent solutions that use cutting-edge technologies. 

This year at Build, Microsoft announced the general availability for developers to build and customize models in Microsoft Azure AI Studio. We recently dropped an Azure Enablement Show episode that guides viewers through building their own Copilot using Studio. Watch a demonstration of how to use prompt flow to create a custom Copilot, how to chat with the AI model, and then deploy it as an endpoint. 

Another episode focuses on new Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB developer guides for Node.js and Python, as well as a learning path for building AI chatbots using Azure Cosmos DB and Microsoft Azure Open AI. You’ll learn how to set up, migrate, manage, and utilize V Core-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB to create generative AI apps, culminating in a live demo of an AI chatbot. 

If that Azure Enablement Show episode piques your interest to learn more about Azure Cosmos DB, check out the Microsoft Developers AI Learning Hackathon, where you’ll further explore the world of AI and how to build innovative apps using Azure Cosmos DB, plus get the chance to win prizes! To help you prepare for the hackathon, we have a two-part series to guide you through building AI apps with Azure Cosmos DB, which includes deep-dives into AI fundamentals, Azure Open AI API, vector search, and more.  

You can also review our official collection of Azure Cosmos DB learning resources, which includes lessons, technical documentation, and reference sample codes.  

Looking for a more structured lesson plan? Our newly launched Plans on Microsoft Learn now provides guided learning for top Azure tools and solutions, including Azure Cosmos DB. Think of it as a structured roadmap for you or your team to acquire new skills, offering focused content, clear milestones, and support to speed up the learning process. Watch for more official Plans on Microsoft Learn over the coming months! 

There’s even more to learn about building intelligent AI apps with other exciting Azure tools, with two official collections on Azure Kubernetes Service—Build Intelligent Apps with AI and cloud-native technologies and Taking Azure Kubernetes Service out of the Cloud and into your World—and Build AI Apps with Azure Database for PostgreSQL.  

Empower your developers to achieve improved productivity 

Accelerating developer productivity isn’t just about coding faster; it’s about unlocking innovation, reducing costs, and delivering high-quality software that drives business growth. Azure developer tools and services empowers you to streamline processes, automate workflows, and use advanced technologies like AI and machine learning. 

Join another fun episode of the Azure Enablement Show to discover Microsoft’s skilling resources and tools to help make Python coding more efficient. Learn how to build intelligent apps with Azure’s cloud, AI, and data capabilities and follow along with hands-on modules covering Python web app deployment and machine learning model building on Azure. 

We also have three official collections of learning resources that tackle different aspects of developer productivity:  

Microsoft Developer Tools @ Build 2024: With cutting-edge developer tools and insights, we’ll show you how to create the next generation of modern, intelligent apps. Learn how you can build, test, and deploy apps from the cloud with Microsoft Dev Box, Microsoft Visual Studio, and how Microsoft Azure Load Testing and Microsoft Playwright Testing make it easy to test modern apps.  

Accelerate Developer Productivity with GitHub and Azure for Developers: Continue unlocking the full coding potential in the cloud with GitHub Copilot. Through a series of videos, articles, and activities, you’ll see how GitHub Copilot can assist you and speed up your productivity across a variety of programming languages and projects.  

Secure Developer Platforms with GitHub and Azure: Learn how to elevate your code security with GitHub Advanced Security, an add-on to GitHub Enterprise. Safeguard your private repositories at every development stage with advanced features like secret scanning, code scanning, and dependency management. 

Accelerate your cloud journey with seamless Azure migration

Migrating to Azure empowers organizations to unlock a world of opportunities. At Build we demonstrated how, by using the robust and scalable Azure cloud platform, businesses can modernize their legacy systems, enhance security and compliance, and integrate with AI.  

Looking to get more hands-on with Azure migration tools? Check out our lineup of Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Days. These free, two-day, four-hour sessions are packed with practical knowledge and hands-on exercises for in-demand skills.  

Data Fundamentals: In this foundational-level course, you’ll learn core data concepts and skills in Azure cloud data services. Find out the difference between relational and non-relational databases, explore Azure offerings like Azure Cosmos DB, Microsoft Azure Storage, and gain insights into large-scale analytics solutions such as Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and Microsoft Azure Databricks.  

Migrate and Secure Windows Server and SQL Server Workloads: This comprehensive look at migrating and securing on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server workloads to Azure offers insights into assessing workloads, selecting appropriate migration options, and using Azure flexibility, scalability, and cost-saving features.  

Microsoft Azure SQL is an intelligent, scalable, and secure cloud database service that simplifies your operations and unlocks valuable insights for your business. The curated learning paths in our official Azure SQL collection will enable you to focus on the domain-specific database administration and optimization activities that are critical for your business. 

For an even more structured learning experience, there’s our official Plans on Microsoft Learn offering, Migrate and Modernize with Azure Cloud-Scale Database to Enable AI.  Designed to equip you with the expertise needed to harness the full potential of Azure SQL, Microsoft Azure Database for MySQL, Microsoft Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server enabled by Microsoft Azure Arc for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, this plan will immerse you in the latest capabilities and best practices.  

Master cloud-scale data analysis for insightful decision making 

Cloud-scale analytics help businesses gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions at an unprecedented speed. Our unified analytics platform, Microsoft Fabric, simplifies data integration, enables seamless collaboration, and democratizes access to AI-powered insights, all within a single, integrated environment. 

Looking to take the Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate certification exam? Get ready with Microsoft Fabric Learn Together, a series of live, expert-led sessions designed to help you build proficiency in tools such as Apache Spark and Data Factory and understand concepts from medallion architecture design to lakehouses.   

There’s still time to register for our Virtual Training Day session, Implementing a Data Lakehouse with Microsoft Fabric, which aims to supply data pros with technical experience how to unify data analytics using AI and extract critical insights. Key objectives include identifying Fabric core workloads to deliver insights faster and setting up a data lakehouse foundation for ingestion, transformation, modeling, and visualization.  

And of course, don’t miss out on our official collection of learning resources for Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks, featuring modules on implementing a Data Lakehouse and using Copilot in Fabric, and workshops on building retrieval augmented generation (RAG) Applications and Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB vCore. For a more curated experience, our Plans on Microsoft Learn collection will get started on how to ingest data with shortcuts, pipelines, or dataflows, how to transform data with dataflows, procedures, and notebooks, and how to store data in the Lakehouse and Data Warehouse.  

Unlock maximum cloud efficiency and savings with Azure 

Promoting resiliency on Azure is a strategic approach to managing your cloud resources efficiently, ensuring optimal performance while minimizing costs. By right-sizing virtual machines (VMs), utilizing reserved instances or savings plans, and taking advantage of automation tools like Microsoft Azure Advisor, you can maximize the value of your Azure investment. 

On another fun episode of our Azure Enablement Show, we explore the Learn Live resources available to help you optimize your cloud adoption journey. Confident cloud operations require an understanding of how to manage cost efficiency, reliability, security, and sustainability. Whether you’re an IT pro or just testing the waters, this two-part episode will point you to the learning resources you need.  

There’s always more to explore at Microsoft Learn 

Like every year, Microsoft Build delivered exciting new products and advancements in Azure technology. Don’t get left behind! Start your skilling journey today at Microsoft Learn.  
The post Build exciting career opportunities with new Azure skilling options  appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure