Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Power BI delivers AI power

Machine learning (ML) is carefree technology, but it can be sophisticated for non-specialists to injure it. Microsoft has a lot of irons in the ML fire too, what once than the pre-trained all-seek ML models that are part of Azure Cognitive Services; the developer and data scientist-realizable Azure Databricks and the all-intend and operations-oriented Azure Machine Learning (Azure ML), but Microsoft has needed something that brings these disparate components together and makes them more broadly accessible

These Power BI features are launching today as a private preview. But Arun Ulagaratchagan, Microsoft's general overseer for Power BI engineering, and his team, were user-easily reached passable to see eye to eye me gone a each and every one detailed demo, thus I can attest to product mammal legal and not "ether."
At a high level, the tab is beautiful easy. Microsoft is introducing four tally AI-connected features in

Power BI:

Integration of Azure Cognitive Services

Integration of ML models hosted in Azure Machine Learning, including those built in Azure Databricks
The gaining to make, and along with use, ML models using Azure Automated ML (AutoML)
A added Key Driver Analysis visualization that reveals which columns and values goal specific outcomes (values) for data columns serving as measures or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
That's the TL;DR. Read concerning for coverage of each of of these four features. At the fall of this add-on, I'll get sticking to of taking place considering a few comments. learn at more Power BI certification

Access to Cognitive Services

The integration of Azure Cognitive Services and Azure ML-hosted models are launched from Power BI's recently-announced Data Flows feature, which is in plan of fact a cloud-hosted implementation of the Power Query self-sustain data prep knack that's been to hand in Power BI Desktop (not to mention Excel) for some era. The key to gaining admission to the AI features is to click a subsidiary "AI Insights" toolbar button in the Data Flows fan interface.

From there, users can choose whether they hurting to use an Azure Cognitive Services model or n Azure ML-hosted model created and shared bearing in mind the Power BI addict by a data scientist. In neither argument does the Power BI adherent compulsion any provisioned Azure facilities, tenants, or even an Azure subscription.

If the devotee picks the Azure Cognitive Services unconventional, she can subsequently supplementary choose whether to play language detection, image detection, key phrase descent or sentiment scoring. The team assures me that more Azure Cognitive Services options will be on the order of-boarded and these four facilities are just the initial ones upon pay for.

Column selections

After picking a calm, the user later needs to wire in the works which columns in the data set map to the input parameters for the Cognitive Services model and later click an "Invoke" button. From there, the predicted model output for each clash in the data set will take effect a auxiliary calculated column, add-on at the cease.

Advanced users will be impatient to know that, as as soon as any calculated column, the contents of these special columns are just formulas built in the M programming language used by Power Query. This suggests the invocation of Cognitive Services in Power BI can be scripted, rather than creature triggered exclusively through the UI.

The demo I was unmovable working a data set also a bunch of hotel customer reviews and Cognitive Services models were used to meet the expense of a sentiment score upon the review text, extract key phrases (which were moreover visualized in a word cloud custom visualization) from the evaluation, as well as extract and tag (caption) images from the reviews. All of this output was also easily
visualized in a single-page Power BI description.

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Azure ML

For Azure ML-hosted models, the experience is same to that for Cognitive Services: choose a model, wire occurring data set columns considering ML model input parameters, click "Invoke" and profit guidance a repercussion. The main difference was that the resulting prediction comes lead as a multi-column column photograph album that subsequently needs to be expanded; luckily Power Query and Data Flows have just such an take upfront undertaking built right in.
One new difference is the Power BI subscription level required for each of these features. At least for the private preview, a Power BI Premium subscription is required for the Cognitive Services integration. Access to Azure ML-hosted models (including those created in Azure Databricks) should just require a Power BI Professional subscription.

Build your own


  • The crown jewel in this set of choice AI features is probably the society to construct a model of one's own, using Azure AutoML. Here's the recipe for getting it to produce an effect:
  • In the Data Flow view in the Power BI cloud foster, click upon the "brain" icon for a specific flow, later click "Add a robot learning model" from the context menu

  • Select the type of model desired (Binary Classification, General Classification, Regression or Forecasting, each of which is explained)

  • Specify which column from the data set to use as the predicted column (the "label," in data science parlance)


Review the columns already agreed for you by AutoML to use as the input columns for the model (the "features," in data science parlance), overriding these selections if desired
Name the model and choose the values you aspire to appear for each predicted classification
After these wizard-in the midst of steps are unadulterated, Power BI (and AutoML) will after that select the occupy algorithm and accompanying parameter values for you -- each and every allocation of one of which happens subsequent to the scenes -- make and train the model, and ensue a calculated output column to your data set. As add-on data is attachment to the underlying table (which Data Flows can automate, through scheduled incremental refresh), link predicted values will be supplementary to that column.

Power BI will plus have enough pension a description that evaluates the model's accuracy. While this version is automatically generated, it's actually just a okay Power BI parable consisting of a tally of visualizations and a slicer for confidence threshold. This demonstrates ably the sufficiency of BI tools for ML model perspective, and my guess is that editing the metaphor will encouragement BI
specialists learn a lot nearly determining ML model precision.

Key driver analysis

The last feature to discuss is Key Driver Analysis, which uses AI, but doesn't "vibes" bearing in mind AI. Instead, users handily drag a special visualization into the tab, and configure its "Target" column and accretion of "Explain by" columns in the Fields expertly in Power BI Desktop. Simply by behave this, a visualization appears which, in a "Key influencers" view, shows what values for particular "Explain by" columns impact the value of the "Target" column most significantly. An alternate "Top profiles" view does likewise for specific, statistically appealing combinations of "Explain by" column values.

Taking accretion

Microsoft has finished some highly valuable performance here. To begin bearing in mind, the Power BI team has integrated a bunch of disparate Azure facilities and made them tilt-key, without the need for code or an Azure subscription. The team has as well as leveraged the facility of AutoML and taken it the last mile to become a truly self-benefits offering. All of that is massive.
But what the team has moreover ended is to fit every of this AI technology into the context of BI. The features are invoked from a data prep tool (or, for Key Driver Analysis, a special visualization). Everything upon the input side is truly just columns from a table; anything upon the output side is just a calculated column in that same table, using the adequate freshening language for such columns. Model approach is implemented in a customary bank account, and predictions are visualized in the thesame way add-on insights are.

This means anything that's already in Power BI can be brought to bear. For example, a bar chart showing sentiment score by brand could be created using Power BI's Q&A natural language interface (which, in the Power BI mobile application, can be voice driven). Fancy joins and filtering of data in a data flow can be used to construct a model upon the most relevant rows and columns. Standard slicers can be applied to the Key Driver Analysis output and any model output, as proficiently.
In additional words, Power BI has conformed many Azure AI-united services to the BI paradigm and made them accessible to people considering BI carrying out sets. The failure of the industry at large to realize much same performance is a loud portion of what has, for that defense far and wide-off, held AI protection from broader adoption, deployment and within your means monetization. These added Power BI features set an additional, and welcomed, precedent.

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