Microsoft AI updates 2024 - Q2

Within this blog, I want to give an overview of all the feature in Q2 2024 that becomes available in General Availability, Technical Preview or End of Support by Microsoft. This information can be found at Microsoft Azure AI Blog.

Features that are now supported by Microsoft (GA):

• [General available] Advanced RAG with Azure AI Search and LlamaIndex
  Microsoft is excited to share a new collaboration between Azure AI Search and LlamaIndex, enabling developers to build better applications with advanced retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) using a comprehensive RAG framework and state-of-the-art retrieval system. RAG is a popular way to incorporate company information into Large Language Model (LLM)-based applications. With RAG, AI applications access the latest information in near-real time, and teams can maintain control over their data. In RAG, there are various stages that you can evaluate and modify to improve your results, they fall into three categories: pre-retrieval, retrieval, and post-retrieval:
  
  • Pre-retrieval enhances the quality of data retrieved using techniques such as query rewriting;
    
  • Retrieval improves results using advanced techniques such as hybrid search and semantic ranking;
    
  • Post-retrieval focuses on optimizing retrieved information and enhancing prompts.
    Click here to learn more.
• [General available] Azure AI Translator announces new features as container offering
  Microsoft is excited to announce the release of document translation (preview) and transliteration features for Azure AI Translator containers. All Translator container customers will get these new features automatically as part of the update. Translator containers provide users with the capability to host the Azure AI Translator API on their own infrastructure and include all libraries, tools, and dependencies needed to run the service in any private, public, or personal computing environment. They are isolated, lightweight, portable, and are great for implementing specific security or data governance requirements. The following operations are now supported when using Azure AI Translator containers:
  
  • Text translation: Translate the text phrases between supported source and target language(s) in real-time;
    
  • Text transliteration: Converts text in a language from one script to another script in real-time. E.g. converting Russian language text written in Cyrillic script to Latin script;
    
  • Document translation (Preview): Translate a document between supported source and target language while preserving the original document’s content structure and format.
    Click here to learn more.

Features are not yet supported by Microsoft (GA)

• [Public Preview] - None