What is Azure OpenAI Service and How to Get Started

If you’ve heard about ChatGPT, you’re probably wondering how companies are using that same technology in their own projects. The answer is Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft’s cloud service that lets you use OpenAI models (like GPT-4, GPT-4o, and DALL-E) within Azure, with all the security and compliance that organizations need.

In this article, I’ll explain what it is, what it’s used for, and how you can take your first steps.

---

What is Azure OpenAI Service?

Azure OpenAI Service is a cloud service on Microsoft Azure that gives you access to OpenAI’s artificial intelligence models. This includes:

• GPT-4o and GPT-4: for generating text, answering questions, summarizing documents, and much more.
• DALL-E 3: for generating images from text.
• Whisper: for converting audio to text.
• Embeddings: for semantic search and recommendation systems.

The key difference from using OpenAI directly is that Azure OpenAI offers:

• Enterprise security: your data is not used to train models.
• Regulatory compliance: certifications like ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA, and more.
• Private networking: you can connect the service to your Azure virtual network.
• Access control: integration with Azure Active Directory (Entra ID).

How is it used in the real world?

Intelligent chatbots

Build virtual assistants that understand natural language and can answer questions about products, services, or internal documentation.

Content generation

Automate the writing of emails, reports, product descriptions, or blog posts.

Document analysis

Summarize contracts, extract key information from reports, or automatically classify support tickets.

Smart search

Implement semantic search over internal knowledge bases, where users ask questions in their own words and the system finds the relevant answer.

What do you need to get started?

1. An Azure subscription

If you don’t have one, you can create a free account at azure.microsoft.com. Microsoft gives you $200 USD in credits for 30 days.

2. Request access to Azure OpenAI

Azure OpenAI requires prior approval. You need to fill out a form in the Azure portal indicating your use case. Approval usually takes between 1 and 5 business days.

3. Create the resource in Azure

Once approved:

1. Go to the Azure Portal (portal.azure.com).
2. Search for “Azure OpenAI” in the search bar.
3. Click Create.
4. Select your subscription, resource group, and region.
5. Give the resource a name and select the pricing tier.
6. Click Review + Create.

4. Deploy a model

Inside your Azure OpenAI resource:

1. Go to Azure OpenAI Studio (oai.azure.com).
2. In the side menu, select Deployments.
3. Click Create new deployment.
4. Choose the model (for example, gpt-4o).
5. Name the deployment and confirm.

Your first API call

Once you have your model deployed, you can test it directly from Azure OpenAI Studio using the Chat Playground. But if you want to do it from code, here’s a Python example:

import openai

client = openai.AzureOpenAI(
    api_key="YOUR_API_KEY",
    api_version="2024-10-21",
    azure_endpoint="https://YOUR-RESOURCE.openai.azure.com/"
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="your-deployment-name",
    messages=[
        {"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant."},
        {"role": "user", "content": "What is artificial intelligence?"}
    ]
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)

To install the required library:

pip install openai

How much does it cost?

Azure OpenAI charges per token (chunks of text). As an approximate reference:

For a small or test project, costs are usually just a few dollars per month. You can set up spending alerts in Azure to avoid surprises.

Next steps

Now that you know the basics of Azure OpenAI Service, I recommend:

1. Create your free Azure account and request access.
2. Explore Azure OpenAI Studio: the playground lets you experiment without writing code.
3. Try a simple use case: a basic chatbot or a summary generator.
4. Check out the official documentation: learn.microsoft.com/azure/ai-services/openai

Conclusion

Azure OpenAI Service is the gateway to bringing generative AI into your projects and your business, with the trust and security that Microsoft Azure provides. You don’t need to be an AI expert to get started: with an Azure account and a few minutes of setup, you can have your first model up and running.

In the next article, we’ll explore Microsoft Copilot, the AI assistant that Microsoft is integrating into all of its tools.