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: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals:
- Introduction to AI
- Generative AI
- Computer vision
- Speech
- Natural language processing
- Extract data and insights
- Responsible AI
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 2: Introduction to machine learning
- Introduction
- What is machine learning?
- Types of machine learning
- Regression
- Binary classification
- Multiclass classification
- Clustering
- Deep learning
- Transformers
- Exercise – Explore Automated Machine Learning in Azure Machine Learning
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 3: Fundamentals of Azure AI services
- Introduction
- 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
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 4: Fundamentals of Computer Vision
- Introduction
- Images and image processing
- Machine learning for computer vision
- Azure AI Vision
- Exercise – Analyze images in Azure AI Foundry portal
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 5: Fundamentals of Facial Recognition
- Introduction
- Understand facial analysis
- Get started with facial analysis on Azure
- Exercise – Detect faces in Vision Studio
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 6: Fundamentals of optical character recognition
- Introduction
- Get started with Azure AI Vision
- Get started with Vision Studio on Azure
- Exercise – Read text in Vision Studio
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 7: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Natural Language Processing
- Fundamentals of Text Analysis with the Language Service: Introduction
- Understand Text Analytics
- Get started with text analysis
- Exercise – Analyze text in Azure AI Foundry portal
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 8: Fundamentals of question answering with the Language Service
- Introduction
- Understand question answering
- Get started with custom question answering
- Exercise – Use question answering with Language Studio
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 9: Fundamentals of conversational language understanding
- Introduction
- Describe conversational language understanding
- Get started with conversational language understanding in Azure
- Exercise – Use Conversational Language Understanding with Language Studio
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 10: Fundamentals of Azure AI Speech
- Introduction
- Understand speech recognition and synthesis
- Get started with speech on Azure
- Use Azure AI Speech
- Exercise – Explore Speech in Azure AI Foundry portal
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 11: Fundamentals of language translation
- Introduction
- Understand translation concepts
- Understand translation in Azure
- Get started with translation in Azure
- Exercise – Explore Azure AI Translator
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 12: Fundamentals of Azure AI Document Intelligence
- Introduction
- Explore capabilities of document intelligence
- Understand Azure AI Document Intelligence capabilities
- Exercise – Extract data from documents in Azure AI Foundry portal
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 13: Fundamentals of Knowledge Mining and Azure AI Search
- Introduction
- 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)
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 14: Introduction to generative AI
- Introduction
- What is generative AI?
- How do language models work?
- Understand how transformers advance language models
- Understand differences in language models
- Improve prompt results
- Evaluate for quality responses
- Create responsible generative AI solutions
- Exercise – Explore generative AI in Azure AI Foundry portal
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 15: Plan and prepare to develop AI solutions on Azure
- Introduction
- What is AI?
- Azure AI services
- Azure AI Foundry
- Developer tools and SDKs
- Responsible AI
- Exercise – Explore the Azure AI Foundry portal
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 16: Responsible generative AI
- Introduction
- 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
- Module assessment
- Summary
Lesson 17: Fundamentals of AI agents on Azure
- Introduction
- What are AI agents?
- Options for agent development
- Azure AI Agent Service
- Exercise – Explore AI Agent development
- Module assessment
- Summary
