What is Azure Cognitive Services / Azure AI Services?
Answer
Azure AI Services (formerly Cognitive Services) is a collection of pre-built AI and machine learning APIs that enable developers to add intelligent features to applications without AI expertise. Key services: Vision: Computer Vision (image analysis, OCR), Face API, Custom Vision. Language: Text Analytics (sentiment, key phrases, NER), Translator (100+ languages), Language Understanding (LUIS). Speech: Speech-to-Text, Text-to-Speech, Speaker Recognition, Real-time Translation. Decision: Anomaly Detector, Content Moderator, Personalizer. Azure OpenAI Service: GPT-4, DALL-E, Embeddings (hosted by Azure with enterprise security). These are REST APIs — send data, receive AI results. Azure AI Services are metered per API call with no ML infrastructure to manage.