Microsoft BigData, ML, AI is here with Cortana Intelligence Suite - Cognitive Services & Bot Framework

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Yesterday at  //BUILD https://build.windows.com we announced a range of new technologies for the era of intelligence.

Welcome to Cortana Intelligence Suite , the new name for the Cortana Analytics Suite.

To learn more about what Cortana Intelligence can do for you, get started here.

Here is a quick summary of the new capabilities we announced at \\Build on the 30/03/2016

  1. Microsoft Cognitive Services (preview) : A collection of intelligent APIs that allow solutions to see, hear, speak, understand and interpret our needs using natural methods of communication. Cognitive Services expand our existing perceptual intelligence capabilities in areas such as Vision, Speech, Text, Recommendations and Face Detection to include new capabilities like Emotion, Language Understanding and Bing Search. For example, Finland-based Blucup lets their sales reps capture data while on the go with a “Zero Keyboard” app that collects information using touch gestures, voice and pictures. The results are automatically integrated into their customer relationship management (CRM) system. To get started with these APIs go here.

  2. Microsoft Bot Framework (preview) : This framework enables organizations to build intelligent agents, known as Bots. Bots let users interact with intelligent solutions as though they are conversing with another person, and interactions can take many forms, from text/SMS to Office365 mail to Skype and Slack. The Framework provides developers with a developer portal and SDK to build Bots, a Bot Connector service to connect to social channels such as Twitter and Slack, and a Bot Directory (coming soon) to discover and use existing bots. For example, a pizza delivery service can now enable users to review the menu, find price promotions and complete an order by simply conversing with a Pizza Bot on their communication platform of choice. To start building your own Bot, go here.

To experience these new capabilities in a fun way, check out www.CaptionBot.ai. This demo site showcases the Vision and Bing Search APIs along with the Bot Framework. It can take any image and create a coherent description of that image using natural language. Sometimes, if CaptionBot figures out you’ve taken a selfie, it will even tell you which celebrity you look like!

I am really excited about the possibilities that Cortana Intelligence can bring to students, researchers and academics and I am really excited in hearing from you what your doing to deliver the power of Big Data, Cloud and Intelligence and intelligent solutions and would welcome hearing from any of you about your experiences into this area and also if your interested in learning more about Cortana Intelligence Suite.