Surveying Our Progress

So, what do you think? Will AI be the technological panacea, where everything is just done for us with a simple command and all the low-skill processes are replaced with robots, or will it lead to the destruction of planet Earth? Before opening the “chaos theory” can of worms, let’s take a look at all the positive outcomes we are now seeing because of AI.

AI is a rapidly growing field that affects a wide range of industries in various ways. From manufacturing to healthcare, AI is being used to automate processes, improve efficiency, and generate new insights. You probably can’t name an industry where AI has not made an incredible impact. We are detecting medical ailments, automating rudimentary processes such as driving, predicting more accurate weather, projecting sales numbers with alarmingly accurate results, and so many more applications. Clearly, AI has many positive impacts, but what about the conversation about how many people...

Highlighting recent advancements in AI

At the time of writing, OpenAI LP, the organization that created ChatGPT has been valued at $29 billion based on its latest round of funding. OpenAI LP is a for-profit AI research company created by OpenAI, a non-profit company founded in 2015 with the “stated goal of promoting and developing friendly AI in a way that benefits humanity as a whole” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI).

The developed model was built on top of the popular GPT-3.5 language model family and leverages both supervised learning and reinforcement learning for its model refinement, which is continuously evolving. Microsoft has invested over $1 billion and has pledged to invest another $10 billion in the next round. Microsoft, along with many other influential technology companies and executives, makes up the majority of the ownership of OpenAI LP. This is with very little revenue being recognized compared to its valuation, but simply a light demonstration...

The lessons learned and returns on investments

The book you have just finished reading is chock-full of discussions about how to ensure you maximize your return on investment and total cost of ownership when it comes to deploying Cognitive Services. We have also attempted to be as transparent as possible when discussing some of the limitations of the technologies as well. The intention of this transparency is to hopefully save you some time, money, and energy on a project that would ultimately fail, due to a technological gap or lack of valid reasoning. We have also provided you with some of the decision points Ocean Smart faced when evaluating the total cost of ownership. Think of these points as your “buyer beware” guidance. The last thing you want is to provide an inaccurate estimate for what a service will actually cost to deploy and maintain to your boss, so be sure to pay attention to these sections and start slow. Starting slow, measuring results, and estimating...

Evaluating future opportunities for optimization

When building a business case, typically, most organizations are looking to solve an operational challenge or provide added value to the company by building a cost analysis. However, sometimes, these evaluations are focused on greater societal drivers, such as sustainability and other initiatives benefitting the greater good. Most organizations are supporters of one or more causes, and they might ask employees to volunteer their time or orchestrate fundraisers. With some of these initiatives, AI is used to help make them more efficient, or surface data that provides better information for decision-making. This involves the company understanding the specific challenges they are trying to solve, selecting the most appropriate services and tools, and working closely with their development and deployment teams to ensure that the AI solution is integrated seamlessly into existing systems and processes.

A few examples of these initiatives...

Summary

Azure Cognitive Services and AI are powerful tools that transform the way businesses and organizations operate in today’s data-driven world. With a wide range of services covering areas such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision, Azure offers businesses the ability to integrate cutting-edge AI technologies into their existing systems and processes, driving innovation and growth.

The ease of integration and scalability of Azure Cognitive Services, combined with its reliability and security, make it an attractive choice for organizations of all sizes, regardless of their technical expertise or resources. Additionally, the Azure platform provides businesses with the ability to quickly and easily experiment with new AI-powered solutions, reducing the risk and complexity associated with traditional software development.

In this book, we have explored the various components of Azure Cognitive Services, detailing the specific capabilities...