Understand question answering

  • 3 minutes

The Azure AI Language service includes a question answering capability, which enables you to define a knowledge base of question and answer pairs that can be queried using natural language input. The knowledge base can be published to a REST endpoint and consumed by client applications, commonly bots.

A conversational app uses a knowledge base of questions and answers

The knowledge base can be created from existing sources, including:

  • Web sites containing frequently asked question (FAQ) documentation.
  • Files containing structured text, such as brochures or user guides.
  • Built-in chit chat question and answer pairs that encapsulate common conversational exchanges.

Note

The question answering capability of the Azure AI Language service is a newer version of the QnA Service, which still exists as a standalone service. To learn how to migrate a QnA Maker knowledge base to the Azure AI Language service, see the migration guide.