Skill 2.3: Describe AI Builder
AI Builder is a relatively recent product designed to add intelligence to the apps and flows created in Power Apps and Power Automate. AI Builder enables apps and flows to perform interpretive tasks using data stored in the Common Data Service, such as predicting yes/no outcomes based on historical data patterns, gathering data from forms, classifying text and applying labels or tags to it, counting and identifying objects depicted in an image file, and organizing data scanned from business cards.
This skill covers how to:
■ Identify the business value of AI Builder
■ Describe how Power Apps and Power Automate can consume AI Builder data
Identify the business value of AI Builder
From a business perspective, AI Builder enables organizations to perform large-scale data gathering activities without manual intervention, eliminating the need for people to perform repetitive data entry and classification tasks.
For example, an organization can use the object detection model to perform inventory and stock-taking tasks. By taking photos of warehouse shelves and feeding them to an app containing an AI Builder model, the app can count the number of objects in the photos and also identify even similar-looking objects, such as containers with different labels. The app can then tabulate the data and store it in a Common Data Service database.
Retaking the same photos later can then generate revised data and enable the app to report on the products that have been sold and that need to be reordered. Instead of multiple workers needing hours or days to count the products on the shelves, one person can simply take the necessary photographs, and the app containing the AI Builder model does the rest.
As shown in Figure 2-27, AI Builder includes a number of prebuilt models that developers can use immediately, such as the Business Card Reader model. It also allows developers to create customized versions of AI models, such as the Object Detection model, which they build and train using their own data. Microsoft is currently in the process of developing, previewing, and releasing additional AI Builder components that enhance both its turnkey and custom capabilities.
FIGURE 2-27 The AI Builder Build screen in the Power Automate portal