This course introduces fundamentals concepts related to artificial intelligence (AI), and the services in Microsoft Azure that can be used to create AI solutions. The course is not designed to teach students to become professional data scientists or software developers, but rather to build awareness of common AI workloads and the ability to identify Azure services to support them.
The course is designed as a blended learning experience that combines instructor-led training with online materials on the Microsoft Learn platform (https://azure.com/learn). The hands-on exercises in the course are based on Learn modules, and students are encouraged to use the content on Learn as reference materials to reinforce what they learn in the class and to explore topics in more depth.
Course Outline
Lesson 1: AI Overview
- Fundamental AI Concepts:
- Understand machine learning
- Understand computer vision
- Understand natural language processing
- Understand document intelligence and knowledge mining
- Understand generative AI
- Challenges and risks with AI
- Understand Responsible AI
- Fundamentals of machine learning:
- What is machine learning?
- Types of machine learning
- Regression
- Binary classification
- Multiclass classification
- Clustering
- Deep learning
- Azure Machine Learning
- Exercise – Explore Automated Machine Learning in Azure Machine Learning
- Fundamentals of Azure AI services:
- AI services on the Azure platform
- Create Azure AI service resources
- Use Azure AI services
- Understand authentication for Azure AI services
- Exercise – Explore Azure AI Services
Lesson 2: Computer Vision
- Fundamentals of Computer Vision:
- Images and image processing
- Machine learning for computer vision
- Azure AI Vision
- Exercise – Analyze images in Vision Studio
- Fundamentals of Facial Recognition:
- Understand facial analysis
- Get started with facial analysis on Azure
- Exercise – Detect faces in Vision Studio
- Fundamentals of optical character recognition:
- Get started with Azure AI Vision
- Get started with Vision Studio on Azure
- Exercise – Read text in Vision Studio
Lesson 3: Natural Language Processing
- Fundamentals of Text Analysis with the Language Service:
- Understand Text Analytics
- Get started with text analysis
- Exercise – Analyze text with Language Studio
- Fundamentals of question answering with the Language Service:
- Understand question answering
- Get started with custom question answering
- Exercise – Use question answering with Language Studio
- Fundamentals of conversational language understanding:
- Describe conversational language understanding
- Get started with conversational language understanding in Azure
- Exercise – Use Conversational Language Understanding with Language Studio
- Fundamentals of Azure AI Speech:
- Understand speech recognition and synthesis
- Get started with speech on Azure
- Use Azure AI Speech
- Exercise – Explore Speech Studio
- Fundamentals of language translation:
- Understand translation concepts
- Understand translation in Azure
- Get started with translation in Azure
- Exercise – Explore Azure AI Translator
Lesson 4: Document Intelligence and Knowledge Mining
- Fundamentals of Azure AI Document Intelligence:
- Explore capabilities of document intelligence
- Understand Azure AI Document Intelligence capabilities
- Exercise – Extract form data in Document Intelligence Studio
- Fundamentals of Knowledge Mining and Azure AI Search:
- What is Azure AI Search?
- Identify elements of a search solution
- Create an index in the Azure portal
- Query data in an Azure AI Search index
- Exercise – Explore an Azure AI Search index (UI)
Lesson 5: Generative AI
- Fundamentals of Generative AI:
- What is generative AI?
- What are language models?
- Using language models
- Understand agents
- Understand Microsoft Copilot
- Considerations for prompts
- Extending and developing copilot-like agents
- Exercise – Explore Microsoft Copilot
- Introduction to Azure AI Foundry:
- What is Azure AI Foundry?
- How does Azure AI Foundry work
- When to use Azure AI Foundry
- Exercise – Explore the Azure AI Foundry portal
- Responsible generative AI:
- Plan a responsible generative AI solution
- Identify potential harms
- Measure potential harms
- Mitigate potential harms
- Operate a responsible generative AI solution
- Exercise – Explore content filters in Azure AI Studio
