AI for the Masses: Democratizing Access to AI with Microsoft Cognitive Services

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In all its previous hype-cycles, Artificial Intelligence (AI) repeatedly fell far short of its promises. Computers were underpowered and consuming AI was too complicated, leaving its benefits unapproachable to all but a small group of experts. But now advances in Machine Learning coupled with the scale of the Azure Cloud bring us Microsoft Cognitive Services, a collection of purpose-built capabilities based on AI and Machine Learning that make it possible for developers of all backgrounds to easily enrich their own projects with these powerful capabilities. In this talk we’ll explore the universe of Microsoft’s Cognitive Services and understand how to use them in your own software projects. We’ll explore services for Facial Recognition, object detection, Natural Language Processing (NLP), as well as Topic Extraction and Sentiment Analysis. We’ll apply these services to various media types from still images to video to text to discover how easy it can be to bring the power of AI and Machine Learning into your own software systems.