Microsoft is introducing a new cloud based bot service for its Azure platform. Now developers can create smart bots for Azure using the new addition to the Microsoft Bot Framework. The bots will operate on Azure functions and allow enterprises to improvise/scale them as needed. Using the Azure Bot Service, developers can build, connect, deploy, or manage bots. These bots will naturally interact with the users via website, application, Skype, Slack, FB messenger, SMS platforms and various other popular devices. The new cloud based bot service for Azure will help companies in producing more intelligent bots.
The Microsoft Bot Framework offers several out-of-the-box templates like basic bots, proactive bots, language understanding bots and so on. Lili Cheng of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence and Research wing says like this: “You can build bots in C# or Node.js directly in the browser and try it out with the companion Web Chat control, or you can use the IDE and code editor of your choice under the covers; the Azure Bot Service uses an Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template to create an Azure Function App for easy deployment and automatically registers your bot in the Microsoft Bot Framework, which provides a public bot directory to increase the exposure of your bot.”
Microsoft is also partnering with OpenAI, an Artificial Intelligence company to convert Azure into their most preferred cloud platform. OpenAI wants to use Azure for their most critical AI experiments. The AI company already uses Azure as its primary cloud provider and also wishes to use it for enhancing their deep learning research and AI experiments. Here are a few reasons why companies like OpenAI prefer Azure:
- Better support for open source technologies
- High performance computing
- Big data and intelligence capabilities (like Microsoft Cognitive toolkit)
OpenAI has already adopted Microsoft Azure’s N-series VMs designed to manage heavy computing workloads, simulations, deep learning etc. Giants like Uber, Lowe’s, and DutchCrafters are already using Azure. Developers can hope that they can definitely make use of Azure Bot Service to build further intelligent bots and take massive strides in the world of AI.