Artificial Intelligence Offerings Receive Updates

• The Azure Machine Learning service, which is fully redesigned from the original, is generally available.
• A unified Azure Speech Cognitive Service is generally available, and the Bot Framework for bot development has received updates.
• Cortana tools for enterprises are in preview, but organizations should be cautious about investing in the technology.

Microsoft’s machine learning, speech processing, and bot-building tools have received updates that could help organizations add or improve the functionality of internal or customer-facing solutions. The improvements are part of the company’s investments in so-called artificial intelligence (AI).

New Azure Machine Learning Service Available

A redesigned Azure Machine Learning service became generally available in Dec. 2018. The new service is offered alongside the original Azure machine learning offering; the original is now called Azure ML Studio, and the new design is called the Azure Machine Learning service. Microsoft has not announced retirement plans for ML Studio.