Azure Bot Service

Azure Bot Service is Microsoft’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot offered as a service on the Azure cloud service marketplace.

Azure Bot Service offers the ability to add intelligent agents that are capable of conversation without having to commit the resources to develop one’s own AI. The service can be added to websites, apps, email, GroupMe, Facebook Messenger, Kik, Skype, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, SMS, Twilio, Cortana and Skype for Business.

The platform gives bot developers a software development kit (SDK) and tools to add bots to sites in the form of Azure Bot Builder. Bots made with the Azure Bot Builder are automatically added to Microsoft’s directory. Azure Bot services also supports bots coded in Python, Java, Javascript and #C.

Azure Bot Service also offers more advanced features through Cognitive Services, such as:

• Scaling to support growth
• Ability to make smart recommendations
• Language translation
• Use of machine vision to recognize users from pictures and to moderate content.

In May 2018, Microsoft announced they had over 300,000 bots in use. Clients of Azure Bot Service include Dixons Carphone, UPS, DJI and Qualcomm.