What is Azure OpenAI Service?

If you are interested in learning about the Azure OpenAI Service. This quick guide will take you through a brief introduction allowing you to learn more about the Microsoft service that allows developers and businesses to leverage OpenAI’s advanced language models, including the prominent GPT-3, Codex, Embeddings series, and the recently released GPT-4 and ChatGPT (gpt-35-turbo) series.

This service, boasting an array of models, fine-tuning capabilities, pricing options, and more, is accessed through REST APIs, Python SDK, or a user-friendly web-based interface, the Azure OpenAI Studio. If you’re wondering how these features can bolster your technological pursuits, this article will serve as your comprehensive guide.

Azure OpenAI provides several exciting features:

Simply put, Azure OpenAI Service aims to deliver advanced language AI with OpenAI GPT-4, GPT-3, Codex, and DALL-E models under the security and enterprise promise of Azure.

The cornerstone of Azure OpenAI Service is its ability to process text with precision. Here’s how it works: The service breaks down the text into tokens, which can be entire words or just character chunks. The total number of tokens processed in any given request hinges on the length of your input, output, and request parameters. Naturally, the number of tokens being processed also influences your response latency and throughput for the models.

To initiate this process:

Microsoft, the entity behind Azure OpenAI Service, is profoundly committed to the responsible use of AI. They’ve undertaken significant investments to protect against abuse and unintended consequences. This includes the need for applicants to present well-defined use cases and the inclusion of Microsoft’s principles for responsible AI use. They’ve also built content filters to assist customers and provide guidance on responsible AI implementation.

Access to Azure OpenAI, as a result, is currently limited due to this commitment, along with high demand and anticipated product enhancements. Presently, Microsoft is focused on existing partners, lower-risk use cases, and those dedicated to incorporating safeguards.

Navigating the world of AI, specifically advanced language models, can seem daunting. However, with a service like Azure OpenAI, it becomes a manageable task. It’s a platform that brings together an assortment of powerful models under the safety umbrella of Azure, offering an approachable interface for management and fine-tuning.

For more information on getting started using the Azure OpenAI Service jump over to the official Microsoft support website where more information is available complete with tutorials, models and more

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Microsoft Is Adding AI to Bing. Is Google in Trouble?

It has only been six months since ChatGPT launched, sparking a new revolution in artificial intelligence (AI), but one thing seems clear. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) are going to be two of the companies that most shape the way we use AI.

Like two heavyweight fighters, these tech titans have taken turns trying to one-up each other in the past few months. Microsoft, which has a strategic partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI, has already integrated the chatbot technology into a wide range of products, including its Azure cloud infrastructure service, Edge browser, and Bing search engine.

Alphabet, after an initial stumble in February when it introduced ChatGPT competitor Bard AI, impressed investors at its I/O conference with an upgraded version of the chatbot running on a new large language model (LLM), called PaLM.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made it clear that he sees search as the biggest prize to be won in AI, but can the Windows maker dethrone the king of search? Let's look at what Bing is doing with AI.

Microsoft first launched its ChatGPT-enabled version of Bing in February, but it was restricted by a waitlist. During that time, Bing grew to more than 100 million daily active users, and daily downloads of the Bing mobile app increased by four times, giving the insurgent search engine a significant boost.

Last month, the company opened up the new Bing to all users and added new features, including giving answers with images and videos, adding a chat history feature that records past chats and allows you to pick where you've left off, being able to share chats, and allowing developers to build new features.  

The company said Bing would become integrated into ChatGPT, opening up another channel to grow Bing's usage as ChatGPT now has more than 100 million active users.

Microsoft could have a huge opportunity here, because nearly half of Web searches go unanswered, showing that conventional search often comes up short as a means of finding information, which offers an opening for disruption.

Search is a massive market, and Google owns more than 90% market share in most of the world. Using Google for search is as engrained as any other digital habit, and globally, there are approximately 9 billion Google searches a day.

According to third-party estimates, Google's market share doesn't seem to have changed significantly since the launch of the new Bing.

However, Google also faces another challenge from ChatGPT and Bing. Google's search business model relies on advertising revenue, which comes in the form of paid listings above "organic" ones. Chat-based search could make it more difficult to sell ads and get clicks.

Large entrenched markets are difficult to shift, and even breakthrough inventions like the iPhone take years to take over a market.

It's too early to tell where the battle for search is going, but dislodging Google's leadership won't be easy. However, Google doesn't have to lose its search supremacy to take a hit from AI-based search.

In addition to the threat to the advertising business, Alphabet will have to spend money to add new AI-based features and defend its market share in a way that it never previously had. In fact, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted, "From now on, the [gross margin] of search is going to drop forever" because of the increased computing costs to support artificial intelligence.

As Nadella sees it, the best search product will win. That isn't necessarily true, though, as Google has an advantage because of habits formed over years of using it for search. But it will still have to keep up with Microsoft.

Alphabet stock initially stumbled back in February, when it rolled out Bard AI, but since then the stock has surged and it's now up roughly 40% year to date. 

Based on the stock movement, investors no longer see Bing or AI-based search as a threat, but that seems like an oversight. 

At this point, Google still has more to lose from AI in search than it has to gain.

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Microsoft launches GPT-enabled Azure AI for US government agencies

Microsoft has announced the availability of a new Azure OpenAI service, designed specifically to meet stringent requirements of US government agencies.

These generative AI capabilities offered by the new service can help US government agencies improve efficiency, enhance productivity, and unlock new insights from their data, the company said in a blog post.

“Currently, large language models that power generative AI tools live in the commercial cloud. For government customers, Microsoft has developed a new architecture that enables government agencies to securely access the large language models in the commercial environment from Azure Government allowing those users to maintain the stringent security requirements necessary for government cloud operations,” it said.

Azure Government is a specialized cloud service for US government agencies with dedicated instances that can only be used by screened users.  

“Azure Government peers directly with the commercial Azure network and doesn’t peer directly with the public internet or the Microsoft corporate network,” the company said.

In order to access large language models such as GPT-4 and GPT-3.5, as well as embeddings — numerical representations of information and relationships among text strings — government bodies can use the APIs bundled with the OpenAI service.

“You can adapt these models to your specific task, including but not limited to content generation, summarization, semantic search, and natural language-to-code translation,” Microsoft said in the post, adding that developers could use the service to build generative AI-based applications faster.

The Azure OpenAI service can also be used through the Python software development kit (SDK) or through the company’s web-based interface in Azure AI Studio, the company said, adding that data from these government agencies will not be used to train its large language models.

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