I am thrilled to announce that Microsoft has been recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide General-purpose Computer Vision AI Software Platform 2022 Vendor Assessment (doc #US49776422, November 2022).

The IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market, and business execution in the short term. The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3–5-year timeframe. Vendor market share is represented by the size of the icons.

Built on a foundation of deep learning and AI research, Azure Cognitive Services for Vision are designed to be flexible and scalable to meet the needs of a wide range of customers. Our Vision services offer a collection of prebuilt and custom APIs for image and video analysis, text recognition, facial recognition, image captioning, model customization, and more, that developers can easily integrate into their applications. We have been actively contributing to the computer vision research community, further advancing the field and encouraging democratization access to cutting-edge computer vision technology.

Where we excelled

The IDC MarketScape report evaluated Microsoft’s strategies and capabilities and positioned Microsoft in the Leaders Category. I believe this recognition is a testament to Microsoft's commitment to deliver cutting-edge, responsible, and customer-centric AI products to organizations of all sizes and across all verticals.

1) Enabling customers with cutting-edge technology

I believe one of the key strengths that sets us apart is our ability to help customers commercialize cutting-edge technology. For example,

• Uber uses vision service’s facial recognition to support security.
• H&R Block uses text recognition to transform tax returns.
• KPMG uses text, image, and video analysis to help banking customers identify financial risks. 
• Territorium to build and deliver a remote proctoring platform and verify student identity.

Recent advancements, such as Dall-E and Florence, have solidified Microsoft’s position as a leader in the industry. Additionally, our OCR and Azure Form Recognizer capabilities have been significantly enhanced, supporting over 300 languages and a broad set of pre-built and custom form models including contracts, invoices, W2s, ID documents, receipts, business cards and upgraded handwriting and customization capabilities. We’ll continue to integrate the latest OpenAI language models with our Vision services to enable deep knowledge queries, further advancing our solutions for customers.

2) Responsible AI

I believe responsible AI is another area where we excel. Microsoft is committed to ethical and transparent AI and has implemented robust processes to ensure our products and services align with industry standards and regulations. Our AI principles, which include fairness, reliability, and safety, guide our development and deployment of AI solutions. We recognize that responsible AI is a journey and are not afraid to make changes based on findings and customer feedback. For example, in June 2022, we announced and implemented the new Responsible AI Standard with additional safeguards and fairness testing and tooling, including a new API that helps developers determine whether an image is suitable for facial recognition, and we shared our plan to phase out emotion detection AI to protect sensitive attributes from being misused—including subjecting people to stereotyping, discrimination, and unfair denial of services.

3) Customer and partner ecosystem

I believe our strong customer and partner ecosystem is also a major differentiator. We have a global network of, partners, service providers, and ISVs that trust and rely on our technology to power their businesses. We work closely with them to understand their unique needs and develop tailored solutions that drive measurable results while supporting their ability to experiment, adopt, and scale Vision service offerings.

As computer vision and AI continue to play an increasingly important role in the digital era, we are well-positioned to help organizations of all sizes and across all verticals leverage the power of computer vision to improve productivity, efficiency, safety, sustainability, and inclusivity. From search engine optimization with image captioning to anomaly detection, facial recognition for identity verification, radiology, or autonomous driving, our platform can support a wide range of use cases and deliver insights that drive business value.

I believe being recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape validates our team's efforts to deliver cutting-edge, responsible, and customer-centric solutions. We will continue to invest in R&D and work closely with our customers and partners to drive the next generation of AI-powered innovation.

Learn more about how Azure AI and Computer Vision lead the way

For more information, please review the IDC MarketScape: General-Purpose Computer Vision AI Software Platforms 2022 Vendor Assessment and discover how our platform can help your organization unleash the power of computer vision.