Azure updates

We're retiring Speech-to-text REST preview API v3.1-preview.1 on May 12, 2023

Target retirement date: May 12, 2023

We recently made the Speech-to-text REST API version 3.1 generally available. With this release, we'll retire the preview version v3.1-preview.1 on May 12, 2023.

• Azure AI services
• Retirements
• Services
• SDK and Tools
• Features

Continuous Language ID in Azure Speech Service

Continual Language ID makes transcription and translation easier by identifying up to 10 languages in a single piece of audio continuously.

• Azure AI services
• Features

Public preview: Azure Cognitive Service for Vision Powers State-of-the-Art Computer Vision Development

Extract robust insights from images and video content across multiple industry domains

• Microsoft Build
• Features

Public Preview: Azure Communication Services Chat for Bot Framework

Build conversational AI experiences with Azure Communication Services. Use virtual chat agents to manage growing customer service needs and provide in-chat intelligence with the help of smart assistants.

• SDK and Tools

General availability: Multivariate Anomaly Detection

Multivariate Anomaly Detection will allow you to evaluate multiple signals and the correlations between them to find sudden changes in data patterns.

• Azure AI services
• Services
• Features

Public preview: Computer Vision Image Analysis 4.0

Get results from all Image Analysis visual features including Read (OCR) with only need one API call.

• Azure AI Vision
• Services
• Features

Migrate to conversational language understanding before Language Understanding (LUIS) is retired on 1 October 2025

Target retirement date: October 01, 2025

Language Understanding (LUIS) will be retired on 1 October 2025

• Language Understanding (LUIS)
• Conversational language understanding
• Retirements

Retirement of Computer Vision API v3.2 previews

Target retirement date: January 30, 2023

Migrate your workloads to Computer Vision API v3.2 GA before 30 January 2023.

• Retirements

Responsible AI investments and safeguards for Facial Recognition

Target retirement date: July 01, 2023

The Cognitive Services team has updated our approach to facial recognition including adding a new Limited Access policy, removing AI classifiers of sensitive attributes and bolstering our investments in fairness and transparency.

• Azure AI services
• Azure AI Video Indexer
• Compliance
• Retirements
• Regions & Datacenters
• Services
• Features

Generally available: Azure NC A100 v4 virtual machines for AI

Perfect for a range of AI workloads, this new virtual machines series can give you a significant performance boost over our previous NC generation series.

• Virtual Machines
• Regions & Datacenters

Public preview: Azure Cognitive Services updates

Azure Cognitive Services is announcing the following preview updates at Build: Azure OpenAI Service and summarization capabilities in Azure Cognitive Service for Language.

• Azure AI services
• Microsoft Build
• Services

General availability: Azure Cognitive Search implements debug sessions

Streamline your Cognitive Search operations with debug sessions for building, testing, and modifying skillsets.

• Azure AI Search
• Services
• Features

Public preview: OCR supports 164 languages in the Cognitive Services Computer Vision

Computer Vision Read API for Optical Character Recognition (OCR), part of Cognitive Services, announces its public preview with support for new languages including Arabic, Hindi, and other regional languages with the same writing scripts. It also extends handwritten OCR support for Japanese and Korean, along with enhancements for handwritten dates, names, and amounts and general performance and AI quality enhancements.

• Features