Cognitive Services Overview
Cognitive Services enable developers to easily add intelligent features to applications without requiring deep AI expertise. They provide pre-built APIs for vision, speech, language, decision, search, and security.
Key Benefits
- Ready‑to‑use AI models hosted on Azure.
- Scalable, pay‑as‑you‑go pricing.
- Compliance with global security and privacy standards.
- Extensive SDKs for .NET, Java, Python, JavaScript, and more.
Service Categories
| Category | Core APIs | Typical Use Cases |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | Computer Vision, Face, Form Recognizer, Custom Vision | Image analysis, OCR, facial recognition, custom image classification. |
| Speech | Speech to Text, Text to Speech, Speech Translation, Speaker Recognition | Transcriptions, voice assistants, multilingual communication. |
| Language | Text Analytics, Translator, Language Understanding (LUIS), QnA Maker | Sentiment analysis, translation, conversational bots, knowledge bases. |
| Decision | Personalizer, Anomaly Detector, Content Moderator | Personalized experiences, fraud detection, content filtering. |
| Search | Azure Cognitive Search, Bing Web Search, Bing Image Search | Enterprise search, web and image search integration. |
| Security | Azure Sentinel, Azure Security Center, Content Moderator | Threat detection, compliance monitoring, safe content. |
Getting Started
Follow these steps to begin using Cognitive Services:
# 1. Create an Azure account
az login
# 2. Create a resource group
az group create --name MyCognitiveRG --location eastus
# 3. Deploy a service (example: Computer Vision)
az cognitiveservices account create \
--name myComputerVision \
--resource-group MyCognitiveRG \
--kind ComputerVision \
--sku S1 \
--location eastus \
--yes
# 4. Retrieve keys
az cognitiveservices account keys list \
--name myComputerVision \
--resource-group MyCognitiveRG
For deeper integration, see the SDK documentation for your preferred language.