Microsoft's collection of AI APIs that can be used ready-made or customised, spanning areas such as Vision, Speech, Language, Document Intelligence, Content Safety and Content Understanding.
Also called Azure AI services, Azure Cognitive Services, Azure AI services.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Foundry Tools in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Azure Document Intelligence in Foundry Tools
Foundry Tool that pulls text and fields out of forms and documents using read, layout, prebuilt models (such as invoice and receipt) and custom models.
- Azure Content Understanding in Foundry Tools
Foundry Tool whose generative AI analyzers turn documents, images, audio and video into structured fields by extracting, classifying or generating values.
Related terms
- API key (Foundry resource key)
Key generated alongside an Azure OpenAI or Foundry Tools resource and supplied through the api-key header. It is used only when keyless authentication with Microsoft Entra ID cannot be.
- APIM subscription key
Caller key supplied either as a query-string parameter or in the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header. API Management's gateway checks it as an APIM subscription key, which is not a Microsoft Entra token, while Foundry Tools like Content Safety read the resource key from it.
- az cognitiveservices account create
Azure CLI command creating a Foundry Tools or Foundry resource based on
--location,--skuand--kind. Customer-managed key configuration belongs in--encryption;--assign-identitymerely creates a managed identity. - Cognitive Services Data Reader
Built-in role granting only read data actions over Foundry Tools data, such as Speech projects.
- CognitiveServices (resource kind)
The
kindvalue used by the older multi-service Azure AI services resource;AIServicesis the kind to choose for new ones. - F0 pricing tier (Foundry Tools)
The free tier of a Foundry Tools resource, specified as sku F0, which allows only a limited number of transactions.
- Foundry Tools containers
Docker images that let certain Foundry Tools, for example Language and Read OCR, run at the edge or on-premises with billing still going to Azure. Both custom and prebuilt features are offered this way.
- IP firewall rules (Foundry Tools)
Rules permitting particular public IP ranges to reach the public endpoint of Search or a Foundry Tools resource. Because traffic still travels across the internet, this is the weakest form of isolation.