What's new in Azure Cognitive Service for Language?

Azure Cognitive Service for Language is updated on an ongoing basis. To stay up-to-date with recent developments, this article provides you with information about new releases and features.

June 2022

• v1.0 client libraries for conversational language understanding and orchestration workflow are Generally Available for the following languages:
  • C#
  • Python
• v1.1.0b1 client library for conversation summarization is available as a preview for:
  • Python
• There is a new endpoint URL and request format for making REST API calls to prebuilt Language service features. See the following quickstart guides and reference documentation for information on structuring your API calls. All text analytics 3.2-preview.2 API users can begin migrating their workloads to this new endpoint.
  • Entity linking
  • Language detection
  • Key phrase extraction
  • Named entity recognition
  • PII detection
  • Sentiment analysis and opinion mining
  • Text analytics for health

May 2022

• PII detection for conversations.

• Rebranded Text Summarization to Document summarization.

• Conversation summarization is now available in public preview.

• The following features are now Generally Available (GA):

  • Custom text classification
  • Custom Named Entity Recognition (NER)
  • Conversational language understanding
  • Orchestration workflow

• The following updates for custom text classification, custom Named Entity Recognition (NER), conversational language understanding, and orchestration workflow:

  • Data splitting controls.
  • Ability to cancel training jobs.
  • Custom deployments can be named. You can have up to 10 deployments.
  • Ability to swap deployments.
  • Auto labeling (preview) for custom named entity recognition
  • Enterprise readiness support
  • Training modes for conversational language understanding
  • Updated service limits
  • Ability to use free (F0) tier for Language resources
  • Expanded regional availability
  • Updated model life cycle to add training configuration versions

April 2022

• Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) support is available in the Language REST API preview for Text Analytics for health.

March 2022

• Expanded language support for:
  • Custom text classification
  • Custom Named Entity Recognition (NER)
  • Conversational language understanding

February 2022

• Model improvements for latest model-version for text summarization

• Model 2021-10-01 is Generally Available (GA) for Sentiment Analysis and Opinion Mining, featuring enhanced modeling for emojis and better accuracy across all supported languages.

• Question Answering: Active learning v2 incorporates a better clustering logic providing improved accuracy of suggestions. It considers user actions when suggestions are accepted or rejected to avoid duplicate suggestions, and improve query suggestions.

December 2021

• The version 3.1-preview.x REST endpoints and 5.1.0-beta.x client library have been retired. Please upgrade to the General Available version of the API(v3.1). If you're using the client libraries, use package version 5.1.0 or higher. See the migration guide for details.

November 2021

• Based on ongoing customer feedback, we have increased the character limit per document for Text Analytics for health from 5,120 to 30,720.

• Azure Cognitive Service for Language release, with support for:

  • Question Answering (now Generally Available)
  • Sentiment Analysis and opinion mining
  • Key Phrase Extraction
  • Named Entity Recognition (NER), Personally Identifying Information (PII)
  • Language Detection
  • Text Analytics for health
  • Text summarization preview
  • Custom Named Entity Recognition (Custom NER) preview
  • Custom Text Classification preview
  • Conversational Language Understanding preview

• Preview model version 2021-10-01-preview for Sentiment Analysis and Opinion mining, which provides:

  • Improved prediction quality.
  • Additional language support for the opinion mining feature.
  • For more information, see the project z-code site.
  • To use this model version, you must specify it in your API calls, using the model version parameter.

• SDK support for sending requests to custom models:

  • Custom Named Entity Recognition
  • Custom text classification
  • Custom language understanding

Next steps

• See the previous updates article for service updates not listed here.