Microsoft improves scalability and performance of Azure AI search

The Azure AI Search platform has received significant updates aimed at helping customers build and scale production-ready generative AI applications. Changes include an increase in memory capacity and vector index, making it much easier to develop production-ready generative AI applications. These improvements are offered at no additional cost, which means, for example, that customers can now perform Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) at any scale without compromising on cost or performance. Users benefit from up to an eleven-fold increase in vector index size, a six-fold increase in total storage and a doubling of indexing and query throughput. In addition, the platform now also supports RAG capabilities for products such as ChatGPT, GPTs and the Assistant API, which contribute significantly to the scaling of these technologies.

More than half of the Fortune 500 companies currently use Azure AI Search to manage their critical enterprise search and generative AI applications. Some of the well-known companies using Azure AI Search to manage their RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) workloads include OpenAI, Otto Group, KPMG and PETRONAS.

Modern search technologies for improved applications

In industries such as professional services, healthcare and telecommunications, it has been recognized that a single search method such as vector search alone is not enough to enable powerful generative AI applications. Azure AI Search supports a variety of approaches such as hybrid queries and semantic neuranking to help developers achieve their goals faster and more effectively.

How Telus Health uses Azure AI Search

Telus Health, a Canadian healthcare technology company, is using Azure AI Search to optimize its customer care platform. Originally based on simple vector search, Telus encountered numerous limitations that required a complete redesign of its customer care platform. By switching to Azure AI Search with its hybrid search and semantic neuranking capabilities, Telus Health was able to achieve significantly improved efficiency and accuracy in responding to customer queries. The platform now more effectively assists users in obtaining specific information about health plans and navigating efficiently through the Telus Health website.

NIQ Brandbank optimizes the online presence of brands

NIQ Brandbank, a service provider for fast-moving consumer goods brands, uses Azure AI Search to optimize its clients' online presence. Their product, Content Health+, uses the power of multi-vector search and search re-ranking to provide relevant content and images for brands' digital presence. The tool helps brands to improve their product display in retailer search results, increase sales and boost their online visibility. NIQ analyzes which product characteristics influence organic placement on digital shelves. Content Health+ takes the most relevant results, which include both text and images, and provides brands with high-quality recommendations to boost their performance and sales. By combining different search methods based on Azure AI Search, NIQ Brandbank gets the opportunity to realize more ideas and opportunities for brand optimization, resulting in a significant increase in brand exposure.

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

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