Microsoft Azure OpenAI service is now available

Microsoft has been very publicly expressing how impressed it is with OpenAI in recent weeks. The software giant has already started making moves to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT into productivity apps like Microsoft Word and Outlook and it looks as though it is also looking to acquire 49% of the company via a $10 billion investment. This trend is continuing with today’s news that Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service is now available for use.

Microsoft announced in a blog post the general availability of Azure OpenAI Service, which will allow businesses to use large-scale AI models, including GPT-3.5, DALL-E 2, and Codex to power their apps. The blog post makes it clear, however, that access to the service will be restricted to customers who meet and adhere to the standards for responsible and ethical AI principles that Microsoft has set and published.

Further to the Responsible AI principles, Microsoft will also require customers to describe what they will be using the tool for when applying to use the service. The blog post also announced that ChatGPT will be coming to the Microsost Azure OpenAI Service too sometime in the future.

Microsoft launched the OpenAI Service on an invite-only basis back in November 2021 and according to the recent blog post announing its general availability, the Service has found a wide variety of different types of customers and use cases:

“Customers of all sizes across industries are using Azure OpenAI Service to do more with less, improve experiences for end-users, and streamline operational efficiencies internally. From startups like Moveworks to multinational corporations like KPMG, organizations small and large are applying the capabilities of Azure OpenAI Service to advanced use cases such as customer support, customization, and gaining insights from data using search, data extraction, and classification.”

Further to the productivity product integration mentioned earlier, Microsoft now also seems set to integrate OpenAI products via the Azure OpenAI Service into other Microsoft products such as GitHub Copilot, Power BI, and Microsoft Designer.

Despite this news of further and deeper integration of OpenAI models into Microsoft products, the recent blog post did not mention at the huge $10 billion investment that will see Microsoft take a huge 49% stake in the company. Even so, however, that is likely because Microsoft wanted to focus on the technical aspects with this announcement and will likely get into greater details of the investment in due time.

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