This workshop will introduce attendees to many of AI and Machine Learning services and tools in the Microsoft world, while providing for hands-on experience.

This is a beginner level workshop into AI/ML (no pre-requisite of AI/ML knowledge, but knowledge of programming is expected).

Machine learning is a data science technique that allows computers to use existing data to forecast future behaviour, outcomes, and trends. By using machine learning, computers learn without being explicitly programmed. Forecasts or predictions from machine learning can make apps and devices smarter. For example, when you shop online, machine learning helps recommend other products you might want based on what you've bought. When your credit card is swiped, machine learning compares the transaction to a database of transactions and helps detect fraud. And when your robot vacuum cleaner vacuums a room, machine learning helps it decide whether the job is done.

Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Databricks (and generically Spark, using Python, R, Scala or SparkSQL), and Azure Machine Learning, are cloud services that you can use to train, deploy, automate, and manage machine learning models, as well as process ETL operations on your data, all at the broad scale that the cloud provides.

Azure AI Services (formerly Cognitive Services) are APIs/SDKs/services available to help developers build intelligent applications without the need for AI or data science skills/knowledge. Azure AI Services enable developers to easily add AI features such as emotion and video detection; facial, speech, and vision recognition; and speech and language understanding – into their applications. The goal of Azure AI Services is to help developers create applications that can see, hear, speak, understand, and even begin to reason.

Azure AI Foundry Agents/Assistants, Microsoft 365 Copilot Studio (formerly Power Virtual Agents) and Azure Bots use these services integrated with the Bot Framework to provide a conversational experience that tries to resemble human interaction. Bots can be deployed in channels such as Teams, Slack, Skype, Facebook, Alexa, IoT, or any other you can imagine.

Attendees that want to try examples during the workshop need to have:
• Laptop;
• Have an Azure subscription (e.g. set up a free trial at https://azure.com/free , use an Azure Pass free trial, or use a paid subscription);
• For Microsoft Fabric, have an active Microsoft 365 subscription with the possibility of starting a free Fabric Trial;
• Your preferred development IDE (e.g. the free Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition or Visual Studio Code) already installed, to access online webservices;
Note: For AI services and APIs, C# and Python examples will be covered, but equivalent examples exist in other programming languages.

Contents:
1. AI and Machine Learning basics;
2. Introduction to Azure AI Foundry (covering LLMs like GPT models and other Model-As-A-Service options);
3. Introduction to other Azure AI Services;
4. Introduction to Agents using Copilot Studio, Agents and Assistants using AI Foundry, integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot, etc.;
5. Introduction to Machine Learning and ETL technologies: Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Databricks, Azure Machine Learning, etc.;
6. Architecting AI technologies in real life;
7. Q&A.

#Azure #AzureOpenAI #AzureAIFoundry #MicrosoftFabric #AzureML #MachineLearning #SynapseAnalytics #Databricks #CognitiveServices #AzureBot #CopilotStudio #BotFramework