AI on Azure
This AI guidance provides a structured approach for integrating AI into your organization using Azure. The guidance is relevant for organizations of any size and industry. It covers both generative and nongenerative AI adoption guidance. It is your roadmap for AI adoption and a central hub to find the resources you need.
Figure 1. How to use the AI adoption guidance for Azure.
Why adopt AI?
AI adoption is foundational to optimizing operations for individuals and organizations. Effective AI adoption uses governance, security, and management best practices to build trustworthy AI workloads. It enhances individual efficiency by automating routine tasks and providing creative insights. AI automates business processes, ranging from adaptive user experiences to business forecasting. These use cases allow businesses and employees to focus on customers and work that matters most. You have options to adopt AI the way that best helps your organization. Microsoft has AI services for different skill set, budgets, and data needs. You can decide what works best based on your goals. This guidance helps you navigate these decisions.
How to adopt AI
AI adoption is a sequential process. This guidance divides AI adoption into six steps. If you're new to AI adoption, complete all six steps. As you define new AI use cases for your organization, revisit the AI Strategy, AI Plan, and AI Ready. Govern AI, Manage AI, and Secure AI are continuous processes. You need to iterate through these processes to ensure your AI workloads remain secure, cost-effective, and trustworthy.
- AI Strategy: Guidance on how to choose the right AI technology for your business and ground AI adoption in responsible AI principles.
- AI Plan: Guidance to assess and find the AI skills needed and how to prioritize use cases to bring to production.
- AI Ready: Guidance to establish a governed and secure Azure environment for your AI workloads and data.
- Govern AI: The process to control your AI workloads and models by establishing guardrails to ensure compliance and responsible AI use.
- Manage AI: The process to manage your AI deployments, operations, models, and data over time to ensure they remain aligned with your business goals.
- Secure AI: The process to assess AI security risks and apply security controls to protect your AI workloads.
AI checklists
Use the AI checklists as your roadmap for adopting and maintaining AI. There are two checklists available: one for startups and one for enterprises. The enterprise checklist provides the most comprehensive guidance. It helps you prepare your organization to adopt AI at scale. For a quicker path to AI adoption, use the startup checklist. As your organization grows, consult the enterprise checklist to support your expanding AI needs.