Azure OpenAI Service for Cloud Native Applications

Chapter 7. Exploring the Big Picture

This chapter includes the last pieces of knowledge for your generative AI learning with Azure OpenAI and other Microsoft technologies. It includes some future visions, interviews with experts, and success stories. Remember, generative AI (and artificial intelligence in general) is a highly evolving domain, so use this book as your entry to a whole universe of knowledge and learning assets.

Let’s start this last chapter by discussing what’s next, from an Azure OpenAI perspective. For an avid learner and AI adopter like you, what are the other areas you should explore?

What’s Next? The Evolution Toward Microsoft Copilot

Azure OpenAI Service is part of a wider ecosystem. All architectures, APIs, and integrations with other generative AI building blocks contribute to the notion of AI copilots, which we mentioned in the first chapter.

AI copilots are technology-enabled assistants, companions that help human agents become better, more efficient, workers. The principle behind them is to provide an interface (written or spoken) that helps people perform complex tasks, such as finding specific information or adding information to a third-party system (e.g., a CRM, a support ticketing system).

As you can see in Figure 7-1, the end-to-end Microsoft vision for AI copilots includes models from Azure OpenAI, but also their connection with other systems such as Microsoft 365, which already includes its own copilot. This can be expanded with additional capabilities ...