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 dates and course fee may be subjected to changes.
Course Outline
Lesson 1: Fundamental AI Concepts
- Introduction to AI
- 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
Lesson 2: 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
Lesson 3: 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 4: Fundamentals of Computer Vision
- Images and image processing
- Machine learning for computer vision
- Azure AI Vision
- Exercise – Analyze images in Vision Studio
Lesson 5: Fundamentals of Facial Recognition
- Understand Face analysis
- Get started with Face analysis on Azure
- Exercise – Detect faces in Vision Studio
Lesson 6: 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 7: Fundamentals of Text Analysis with the Language Service
- Understand Text Analytics
- Get started with text analysis
- Exercise – Analyze text with Language Studio
Lesson 8: Fundamentals of question answering with the Language Service
- Understand question answering
- Get started with the Language service and Azure Bot Service
- Exercise – Use question answering with Language Studio
Lesson 9: 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
Lesson 10: Fundamentals of Azure AI Speech
- Understand speech recognition and synthesis
- Get started with speech on Azure
- Exercise – Explore Speech Studio
Lesson 11: Fundamentals of Azure AI Document Intelligence
- Explore capabilities of document intelligence
- Get started with receipt analysis on Azure
- Exercise – Extract from data in Document Intelligence Studio
Lesson 12: Fundamentals of Knowledge Mining and Azure AI Search
- What is Azure AI Search?
- Identify elements of a search solution
- Use a skillset to define an enrichment pipeline
- Understand indexes
- Use an indexer to build an index
- Persist enriched data in a knowledge store
- Create an index in the Azure portal
- Query data in an Azure AI Search index
- Exercise – Explore an Azure AI Search index (UI)
Lesson 13: Fundamentals of Generative AI
- What is generative AI?
- What are language models?
- Using language models
- What are copilots?
- Microsoft Copilot
- Considerations for Copilot prompts
- Extending and developing copilots
- Exercise – Explore Microsoft Copilot
Lesson 14: Fundamentals of Azure OpenAI Service
- What is generative AI
- Describe Azure OpenAI
- How to use Azure OpenAI
- Understand OpenAI’s natural language capabilities
- Understand OpenAI code generation capabilities
- Understand OpenAI’s image generation capabilities
- Describe Azure OpenAI’s access and responsible AI policies
- Exercise – Explore Azure OpenAI Service
Lesson 15: Fundamentals of 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 OpenAI
