Quickstart: using text, document and conversation summarization

Important

Conversation summarization is only available using:

  • REST API
  • Python
  • C#

Use this quickstart to create a text summarization application with the client library for .NET. In the following example, you'll create a C# application that can summarize documents or text-based customer service conversations.

Tip

You can use Language Studio to try text summarization without needing to write code.

Prerequisites

  • Azure subscription - Create one for trial
  • The Visual Studio IDE
  • Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Language resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. After it deploys, select Go to resource.
    • You'll need the key and endpoint from the resource you create to connect your application to the API. You paste your key and endpoint into the code later in the quickstart.
    • You can use the free pricing tier (Free F0) to try the service, and upgrade later to a paid tier for production.
  • To use the Analyze feature, you'll need a Language resource with the standard (S) pricing tier.

Setting up

Create environment variables

Your application must be authenticated to send API requests. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials. In this example, you will write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your Language resource key, open a console window, and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

  • To set the LANGUAGE_KEY environment variable, replace your-key with one of the keys for your resource.
  • To set the LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace your-endpoint with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

setx LANGUAGE_KEY your-key
setx LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT your-endpoint

Note

If you only need to access the environment variables in the current running console, you can set the environment variable with set instead of setx.

After you add the environment variables, you may need to restart any running programs that will need to read the environment variables, including the console window. For example, if you are using Visual Studio as your editor, restart Visual Studio before running the example.

Create a new .NET Core application

Using the Visual Studio IDE, create a new .NET Core console app. This creates a "Hello World" project with a single C# source file: program.cs.

Install the client library by right-clicking on the solution in the Solution Explorer and selecting Manage NuGet Packages. In the package manager that opens select Browse and search for Azure.AI.TextAnalytics. Make sure Include prerelease is checked. Select version 5.3.0, and then Install. You can also use the Package Manager Console.

Code example

Copy the following code into your program.cs file. Then run the code.

Important

Go to the Azure portal. If the Language resource you created in the Prerequisites section deployed successfully, click the Go to Resource button under Next Steps. You can find your key and endpoint by navigating to your resource's Keys and Endpoint page, under Resource Management.

Important

Remember to remove the key from your code when you're done, and never post it publicly. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials like Azure Key Vault. See the Azure AI services security article for more information.

using Azure;
using System;
using Azure.AI.TextAnalytics;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace Example
{
    class Program
    {
        // This example requires environment variables named "LANGUAGE_KEY" and "LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT"
        static string languageKey = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("LANGUAGE_KEY");
        static string languageEndpoint = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT");

        private static readonly AzureKeyCredential credentials = new AzureKeyCredential(languageKey);
        private static readonly Uri endpoint = new Uri(languageEndpoint);

        // Example method for summarizing text
        static async Task TextSummarizationExample(TextAnalyticsClient client)
        {
            string document = @"The extractive summarization feature uses natural language processing techniques to locate key sentences in an unstructured text document. 
                These sentences collectively convey the main idea of the document. This feature is provided as an API for developers. 
                They can use it to build intelligent solutions based on the relevant information extracted to support various use cases. 
                Extractive summarization supports several languages. It is based on pretrained multilingual transformer models, part of our quest for holistic representations. 
                It draws its strength from transfer learning across monolingual and harness the shared nature of languages to produce models of improved quality and efficiency." ;
        
            // Prepare analyze operation input. You can add multiple documents to this list and perform the same
            // operation to all of them.
            var batchInput = new List<string>
            {
                document
            };
        
            TextAnalyticsActions actions = new TextAnalyticsActions()
            {
                ExtractiveSummarizeActions = new List<ExtractiveSummarizeAction>() { new ExtractiveSummarizeAction() }
            };
        
            // Start analysis process.
            AnalyzeActionsOperation operation = await client.StartAnalyzeActionsAsync(batchInput, actions);
            await operation.WaitForCompletionAsync();
            // View operation status.
            Console.WriteLine($"AnalyzeActions operation has completed");
            Console.WriteLine();
        
            Console.WriteLine($"Created On   : {operation.CreatedOn}");
            Console.WriteLine($"Expires On   : {operation.ExpiresOn}");
            Console.WriteLine($"Id           : {operation.Id}");
            Console.WriteLine($"Status       : {operation.Status}");
        
            Console.WriteLine();
            // View operation results.
            await foreach (AnalyzeActionsResult documentsInPage in operation.Value)
            {
                IReadOnlyCollection<ExtractiveSummarizeActionResult> summaryResults = documentsInPage.ExtractiveSummarizeResults;
        
                foreach (ExtractiveSummarizeActionResult summaryActionResults in summaryResults)
                {
                    if (summaryActionResults.HasError)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine($"  Error!");
                        Console.WriteLine($"  Action error code: {summaryActionResults.Error.ErrorCode}.");
                        Console.WriteLine($"  Message: {summaryActionResults.Error.Message}");
                        continue;
                    }
        
                    foreach (ExtractiveSummarizeResult documentResults in summaryActionResults.DocumentsResults)
                    {
                        if (documentResults.HasError)
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine($"  Error!");
                            Console.WriteLine($"  Document error code: {documentResults.Error.ErrorCode}.");
                            Console.WriteLine($"  Message: {documentResults.Error.Message}");
                            continue;
                        }
        
                        Console.WriteLine($"  Extracted the following {documentResults.Sentences.Count} sentence(s):");
                        Console.WriteLine();
        
                        foreach (ExtractiveSummarySentence sentence in documentResults.Sentences)
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine($"  Sentence: {sentence.Text}");
                            Console.WriteLine();
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        static async Task Main(string[] args)
        {
            var client = new TextAnalyticsClient(endpoint, credentials);
            await TextSummarizationExample(client);
        }
    }
}

Output

AnalyzeActions operation has completed

Created On   : 9/16/2021 8:04:27 PM +00:00
Expires On   : 9/17/2021 8:04:27 PM +00:00
Id           : 2e63fa58-fbaa-4be9-a700-080cff098f91
Status       : succeeded

Extracted the following 3 sentence(s):

Sentence: The extractive summarization feature in uses natural language processing techniques to locate key sentences in an unstructured text document.

Sentence: This feature is provided as an API for developers.

Sentence: They can use it to build intelligent solutions based on the relevant information extracted to support various use cases.

Reference documentation | More samples | Package (Maven) | Library source code

Use this quickstart to create a text summarization application with the client library for Java. In the following example, you'll create a Java application that can summarize documents.

Tip

You can use Language Studio to try text summarization without needing to write code.

Prerequisites

  • Azure subscription - Create one for trial
  • Java Development Kit (JDK) with version 8 or above
  • Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Language resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. After it deploys, select Go to resource.
    • You'll need the key and endpoint from the resource you create to connect your application to the API. You paste your key and endpoint into the code below later in the quickstart.
    • You can use the free pricing tier (Free F0) to try the service, and upgrade later to a paid tier for production.
  • To use the Analyze feature, you'll need a Language resource with the standard (S) pricing tier.

Setting up

Add the client library

Create a Maven project in your preferred IDE or development environment. Then add the following dependency to your project's pom.xml file. You can find the implementation syntax for other build tools online.

<dependencies>
     <dependency>
        <groupId>com.azure</groupId>
        <artifactId>azure-ai-textanalytics</artifactId>
        <version>5.3.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Create environment variables

Your application must be authenticated to send API requests. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials. In this example, you will write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your Language resource key, open a console window, and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

  • To set the LANGUAGE_KEY environment variable, replace your-key with one of the keys for your resource.
  • To set the LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace your-endpoint with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

setx LANGUAGE_KEY your-key
setx LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT your-endpoint

Note

If you only need to access the environment variables in the current running console, you can set the environment variable with set instead of setx.

After you add the environment variables, you may need to restart any running programs that will need to read the environment variables, including the console window. For example, if you are using Visual Studio as your editor, restart Visual Studio before running the example.

Code example

Create a Java file named Example.java. Open the file and copy the below code. Then run the code.

Important

Go to the Azure portal. If the Language resource you created in the Prerequisites section deployed successfully, click the Go to Resource button under Next Steps. You can find your key and endpoint by navigating to your resource's Keys and Endpoint page, under Resource Management.

Important

Remember to remove the key from your code when you're done, and never post it publicly. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials like Azure Key Vault. See the Azure AI services security article for more information.

import com.azure.core.credential.AzureKeyCredential;
import com.azure.ai.textanalytics.models.*;
import com.azure.ai.textanalytics.TextAnalyticsClientBuilder;
import com.azure.ai.textanalytics.TextAnalyticsClient;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import com.azure.core.util.polling.SyncPoller;
import com.azure.ai.textanalytics.util.*;

public class Example {

    // This example requires environment variables named "LANGUAGE_KEY" and "LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT"
    private static String languageKey = System.getenv("LANGUAGE_KEY");
    private static String languageEndpoint = System.getenv("LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT");

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        TextAnalyticsClient client = authenticateClient(languageKey, languageEndpoint);
        summarizationExample(client);
    }
    // Method to authenticate the client object with your key and endpoint
    static TextAnalyticsClient authenticateClient(String key, String endpoint) {
        return new TextAnalyticsClientBuilder()
                .credential(new AzureKeyCredential(key))
                .endpoint(endpoint)
                .buildClient();
    }
    // Example method for summarizing text
    static void summarizationExample(TextAnalyticsClient client) {
        List<String> documents = new ArrayList<>();
        documents.add(
                "The extractive summarization feature uses natural language processing techniques "
                + "to locate key sentences in an unstructured text document. "
                + "These sentences collectively convey the main idea of the document. This feature is provided as an API for developers. "
                + "They can use it to build intelligent solutions based on the relevant information extracted to support various use cases. "
                + "Extractive summarization supports several languages. "
                + "It is based on pretrained multilingual transformer models, part of our quest for holistic representations. "
                + "It draws its strength from transfer learning across monolingual and harness the shared nature of languages "
                + "to produce models of improved quality and efficiency.");
    
        SyncPoller<AnalyzeActionsOperationDetail, AnalyzeActionsResultPagedIterable> syncPoller =
                client.beginAnalyzeActions(documents,
                        new TextAnalyticsActions().setDisplayName("{tasks_display_name}")
                                .setExtractSummaryActions(
                                        new ExtractSummaryAction()),
                        "en",
                        new AnalyzeActionsOptions());
    
        syncPoller.waitForCompletion();
    
        syncPoller.getFinalResult().forEach(actionsResult -> {
            System.out.println("Extractive Summarization action results:");
            for (ExtractSummaryActionResult actionResult : actionsResult.getExtractSummaryResults()) {
                if (!actionResult.isError()) {
                    for (ExtractSummaryResult documentResult : actionResult.getDocumentsResults()) {
                        if (!documentResult.isError()) {
                            System.out.println("\tExtracted summary sentences:");
                            for (SummarySentence summarySentence : documentResult.getSentences()) {
                                System.out.printf(
                                        "\t\t Sentence text: %s, length: %d, offset: %d, rank score: %f.%n",
                                        summarySentence.getText(), summarySentence.getLength(),
                                        summarySentence.getOffset(), summarySentence.getRankScore());
                            }
                        } else {
                            System.out.printf("\tCannot extract summary sentences. Error: %s%n",
                                    documentResult.getError().getMessage());
                        }
                    }
                } else {
                    System.out.printf("\tCannot execute Extractive Summarization action. Error: %s%n",
                            actionResult.getError().getMessage());
                }
            }
        });
    }
}

Output

Extractive Summarization action results:
	Extracted summary sentences:
		 Sentence text: The extractive summarization feature uses natural language processing techniques to locate key sentences in an unstructured text document., length: 138, offset: 0, rank score: 1.000000.
		 Sentence text: This feature is provided as an API for developers., length: 50, offset: 206, rank score: 0.510000.
		 Sentence text: Extractive summarization supports several languages., length: 52, offset: 378, rank score: 0.410000.

Reference documentation | Additional samples | Package (npm) | Library source code

Use this quickstart to create a text summarization application with the client library for Node.js. In the following example, you'll create a JavaScript application that can summarize documents.

Tip

You can use Language Studio to try text summarization without needing to write code.

Prerequisites

  • Azure subscription - Create one for trial
  • Node.js v16 LTS
  • Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Language resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. After it deploys, select Go to resource.
    • You'll need the key and endpoint from the resource you create to connect your application to the API. You'll paste your key and endpoint into the code below later in the quickstart.
    • You can use the free pricing tier (Free F0) to try the service, and upgrade later to a paid tier for production.
  • To use the Analyze feature, you'll need a Language resource with the standard (S) pricing tier.

Setting up

Create environment variables

Your application must be authenticated to send API requests. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials. In this example, you will write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your Language resource key, open a console window, and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

  • To set the LANGUAGE_KEY environment variable, replace your-key with one of the keys for your resource.
  • To set the LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace your-endpoint with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

setx LANGUAGE_KEY your-key
setx LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT your-endpoint

Note

If you only need to access the environment variables in the current running console, you can set the environment variable with set instead of setx.

After you add the environment variables, you may need to restart any running programs that will need to read the environment variables, including the console window. For example, if you are using Visual Studio as your editor, restart Visual Studio before running the example.

Create a new Node.js application

In a console window (such as cmd, PowerShell, or Bash), create a new directory for your app, and navigate to it.

mkdir myapp 

cd myapp

Run the npm init command to create a node application with a package.json file.

npm init

Install the client library

Install the npm packages:

npm install --save @azure/ai-language-text@1.1.0

Code example

Open the file and copy the below code. Then run the code.

Important

Go to the Azure portal. If the Language resource you created in the Prerequisites section deployed successfully, click the Go to Resource button under Next Steps. You can find your key and endpoint by navigating to your resource's Keys and Endpoint page, under Resource Management.

Important

Remember to remove the key from your code when you're done, and never post it publicly. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials like Azure Key Vault. See the Azure AI services security article for more information.

/**
 * This sample program extracts a summary of two sentences at max from an article.
 * For more information, see the feature documentation: {@link https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ai-services/language-service/summarization/overview}
 *
 * @summary extracts a summary from an article
 */

const { AzureKeyCredential, TextAnalysisClient } = require("@azure/ai-language-text");

// Load the .env file if it exists
require("dotenv").config();

// This example requires environment variables named "LANGUAGE_KEY" and "LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT"
const endpoint = process.env.LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT;
const apiKey = process.env.LANGUAGE_KEY;

const documents = [
  `
           Windows 365 was in the works before COVID-19 sent companies around the world on a scramble to secure solutions to support employees suddenly forced to work from home, but “what really put the firecracker behind it was the pandemic, it accelerated everything,” McKelvey said. She explained that customers were asking, “’How do we create an experience for people that makes them still feel connected to the company without the physical presence of being there?”
           In this new world of Windows 365, remote workers flip the lid on their laptop, bootup the family workstation or clip a keyboard onto a tablet, launch a native app or modern web browser and login to their Windows 365 account. From there, their Cloud PC appears with their background, apps, settings and content just as they left it when they last were last there - in the office, at home or a coffee shop.
           “And then, when you’re done, you’re done. You won’t have any issues around security because you’re not saving anything on your device,” McKelvey said, noting that all the data is stored in the cloud.
           The ability to login to a Cloud PC from anywhere on any device is part of Microsoft’s larger strategy around tailoring products such as Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 for the post-pandemic hybrid workforce of the future, she added. It enables employees accustomed to working from home to continue working from home; it enables companies to hire interns from halfway around the world; it allows startups to scale without requiring IT expertise.
           “I think this will be interesting for those organizations who, for whatever reason, have shied away from virtualization. This is giving them an opportunity to try it in a way that their regular, everyday endpoint admin could manage,” McKelvey said.
           The simplicity of Windows 365 won over Dean Wells, the corporate chief information officer for the Government of Nunavut. His team previously attempted to deploy a traditional virtual desktop infrastructure and found it inefficient and unsustainable given the limitations of low-bandwidth satellite internet and the constant need for IT staff to manage the network and infrastructure.
           We didn’t run it for very long,” he said. “It didn’t turn out the way we had hoped. So, we actually had terminated the project and rolled back out to just regular PCs.”
           He re-evaluated this decision after the Government of Nunavut was hit by a ransomware attack in November 2019 that took down everything from the phone system to the government’s servers. Microsoft helped rebuild the system, moving the government to Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and Microsoft 365. Manchester’s team recruited the Government of Nunavut to pilot Windows 365. Wells was intrigued, especially by the ability to manage the elastic workforce securely and seamlessly.
           “The impact that I believe we are finding, and the impact that we’re going to find going forward, is being able to access specialists from outside the territory and organizations outside the territory to come in and help us with our projects, being able to get people on staff with us to help us deliver the day-to-day expertise that we need to run the government,” he said.
           “Being able to improve healthcare, being able to improve education, economic development is going to improve the quality of life in the communities.”`,
];

async function main() {
  console.log("== Extractive Summarization Sample ==");

  const client = new TextAnalysisClient(endpoint, new AzureKeyCredential(apiKey));
  const actions = [
    {
      kind: "ExtractiveSummarization",
      maxSentenceCount: 2,
    },
  ];
  const poller = await client.beginAnalyzeBatch(actions, documents, "en");

  poller.onProgress(() => {
    console.log(
      `Last time the operation was updated was on: ${poller.getOperationState().modifiedOn}`
    );
  });
  console.log(`The operation was created on ${poller.getOperationState().createdOn}`);
  console.log(`The operation results will expire on ${poller.getOperationState().expiresOn}`);

  const results = await poller.pollUntilDone();

  for await (const actionResult of results) {
    if (actionResult.kind !== "ExtractiveSummarization") {
      throw new Error(`Expected extractive summarization results but got: ${actionResult.kind}`);
    }
    if (actionResult.error) {
      const { code, message } = actionResult.error;
      throw new Error(`Unexpected error (${code}): ${message}`);
    }
    for (const result of actionResult.results) {
      console.log(`- Document ${result.id}`);
      if (result.error) {
        const { code, message } = result.error;
        throw new Error(`Unexpected error (${code}): ${message}`);
      }
      console.log("Summary:");
      console.log(result.sentences.map((sentence) => sentence.text).join("\n"));
    }
  }
}

main().catch((err) => {
  console.error("The sample encountered an error:", err);
});

module.exports = { main };

Use this quickstart to create a text summarization application with the client library for Python. In the following example, you'll create a Python application that can summarize documents or text-based customer service conversations.

Tip

You can use Language Studio to try text summarization without needing to write code.

Prerequisites

  • Azure subscription - Create one for trial
  • Python 3.x
  • Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Language resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. After it deploys, select Go to resource.
    • You'll need the key and endpoint from the resource you create to connect your application to the API. You paste your key and endpoint into the code below later in the quickstart.
    • You can use the free pricing tier (Free F0) to try the service, and upgrade later to a paid tier for production.
  • To use the Analyze feature, you'll need a Language resource with the standard (S) pricing tier.

Setting up

Create environment variables

Your application must be authenticated to send API requests. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials. In this example, you will write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your Language resource key, open a console window, and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

  • To set the LANGUAGE_KEY environment variable, replace your-key with one of the keys for your resource.
  • To set the LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace your-endpoint with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

setx LANGUAGE_KEY your-key
setx LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT your-endpoint

Note

If you only need to access the environment variables in the current running console, you can set the environment variable with set instead of setx.

After you add the environment variables, you may need to restart any running programs that will need to read the environment variables, including the console window. For example, if you are using Visual Studio as your editor, restart Visual Studio before running the example.

Install the client library

After installing Python, you can install the client library with:

pip install azure-ai-textanalytics==5.3.0

Code example

Create a new Python file and copy the below code. Then run the code.

Important

Go to the Azure portal. If the Language resource you created in the Prerequisites section deployed successfully, click the Go to Resource button under Next Steps. You can find your key and endpoint by navigating to your resource's Keys and Endpoint page, under Resource Management.

Important

Remember to remove the key from your code when you're done, and never post it publicly. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials like Azure Key Vault. See the Azure AI services security article for more information.

# This example requires environment variables named "LANGUAGE_KEY" and "LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT"
key = os.environ.get('LANGUAGE_KEY')
endpoint = os.environ.get('LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT')

from azure.ai.textanalytics import TextAnalyticsClient
from azure.core.credentials import AzureKeyCredential

# Authenticate the client using your key and endpoint 
def authenticate_client():
    ta_credential = AzureKeyCredential(key)
    text_analytics_client = TextAnalyticsClient(
            endpoint=endpoint, 
            credential=ta_credential)
    return text_analytics_client

client = authenticate_client()

# Example method for summarizing text
def sample_extractive_summarization(client):
    from azure.core.credentials import AzureKeyCredential
    from azure.ai.textanalytics import (
        TextAnalyticsClient,
        ExtractiveSummaryAction
    ) 

    document = [
        "The extractive summarization feature uses natural language processing techniques to locate key sentences in an unstructured text document. "
        "These sentences collectively convey the main idea of the document. This feature is provided as an API for developers. " 
        "They can use it to build intelligent solutions based on the relevant information extracted to support various use cases. "
        "Extractive summarization supports several languages. It is based on pretrained multilingual transformer models, part of our quest for holistic representations. "
        "It draws its strength from transfer learning across monolingual and harness the shared nature of languages to produce models of improved quality and efficiency. "
    ]

    poller = client.begin_analyze_actions(
        document,
        actions=[
            ExtractiveSummaryAction(max_sentence_count=4)
        ],
    )

    document_results = poller.result()
    for result in document_results:
        extract_summary_result = result[0]  # first document, first result
        if extract_summary_result.is_error:
            print("...Is an error with code '{}' and message '{}'".format(
                extract_summary_result.code, extract_summary_result.message
            ))
        else:
            print("Summary extracted: \n{}".format(
                " ".join([sentence.text for sentence in extract_summary_result.sentences]))
            )

sample_extractive_summarization(client)

Output

Summary extracted: 
The extractive summarization feature uses natural language processing techniques to locate key sentences in an unstructured text document. This feature is provided as an API for developers. They can use it to build intelligent solutions based on the relevant information extracted to support various use cases.

Use this quickstart to send text summarization requests using the REST API. In the following example, you will use cURL to summarize documents or text-based customer service conversations.

Tip

You can use Language Studio to try text summarization without needing to write code.

Prerequisites

  • The current version of cURL.
  • Once you have your Azure subscription, create a Language resource in the Azure portal to get your key and endpoint. After it deploys, select Go to resource.
    • You will need the key and endpoint from the resource you create to connect your application to the API. You'll paste your key and endpoint into the code below later in the quickstart.
    • You can use the free pricing tier (Free F0) to try the service, and upgrade later to a paid tier for production.

Setting up

Create environment variables

Your application must be authenticated to send API requests. For production, use a secure way of storing and accessing your credentials. In this example, you will write your credentials to environment variables on the local machine running the application.

To set the environment variable for your Language resource key, open a console window, and follow the instructions for your operating system and development environment.

  • To set the LANGUAGE_KEY environment variable, replace your-key with one of the keys for your resource.
  • To set the LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT environment variable, replace your-endpoint with the endpoint for your resource.

Important

If you use an API key, store it securely somewhere else, such as in Azure Key Vault. Don't include the API key directly in your code, and never post it publicly.

For more information about AI services security, see Authenticate requests to Azure AI services.

setx LANGUAGE_KEY your-key
setx LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT your-endpoint

Note

If you only need to access the environment variables in the current running console, you can set the environment variable with set instead of setx.

After you add the environment variables, you may need to restart any running programs that will need to read the environment variables, including the console window. For example, if you are using Visual Studio as your editor, restart Visual Studio before running the example.

Example request

Note

  • The following BASH exaples use the \ line continuation character. If your console or terminal uses a different line continuation character, use that character.
  • You can find language specific samples on GitHub. To call the API, you need the following information:

Choose the type of summarization you would like to perform, and select one of the tabs below to see an example API call:

Feature Description
Text summarization Use extractive text summarization to produce a summary of important or relevant information within a document.
Conversation summarization Use abstractive text summarization to produce a summary of issues and resolutions in transcripts between customer-service agents, and customers.
parameter Description
-X POST <endpoint> Specifies your endpoint for accessing the API.
-H Content-Type: application/json The content type for sending JSON data.
-H "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key:<key> Specifies the key for accessing the API.
-d <documents> The JSON containing the documents you want to send.

The following cURL commands are executed from a BASH shell. Edit these commands with your own JSON values.

Text summarization

Text extractive summarization example

The following example will get you started with text extractive summarization:

  1. Copy the command below into a text editor. The BASH example uses the \ line continuation character. If your console or terminal uses a different line continuation character, use that character instead.
curl -i -X POST $LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT/language/analyze-text/jobs?api-version=2023-04-01 \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: $LANGUAGE_KEY" \
-d \
' 
{
  "displayName": "Text ext Summarization Task Example",
  "analysisInput": {
    "documents": [
      {
        "id": "1",
        "language": "en",
        "text": "At Microsoft, we have been on a quest to advance AI beyond existing techniques, by taking a more holistic, human-centric approach to learning and understanding. As Chief Technology Officer of Azure AI services, I have been working with a team of amazing scientists and engineers to turn this quest into a reality. In my role, I enjoy a unique perspective in viewing the relationship among three attributes of human cognition: monolingual text (X), audio or visual sensory signals, (Y) and multilingual (Z). At the intersection of all three, there’s magic—what we call XYZ-code as illustrated in Figure 1—a joint representation to create more powerful AI that can speak, hear, see, and understand humans better. We believe XYZ-code will enable us to fulfill our long-term vision: cross-domain transfer learning, spanning modalities and languages. The goal is to have pre-trained models that can jointly learn representations to support a broad range of downstream AI tasks, much in the way humans do today. Over the past five years, we have achieved human performance on benchmarks in conversational speech recognition, machine translation, conversational question answering, machine reading comprehension, and image captioning. These five breakthroughs provided us with strong signals toward our more ambitious aspiration to produce a leap in AI capabilities, achieving multi-sensory and multilingual learning that is closer in line with how humans learn and understand. I believe the joint XYZ-code is a foundational component of this aspiration, if grounded with external knowledge sources in the downstream AI tasks."
      }
    ]
  },
  "tasks": [
    {
      "kind": "ExtractiveSummarization",
      "taskName": "Text Extractive Summarization Task 1",
      "parameters": {
        "sentenceCount": 6
      }
    }
  ]
}
'
  1. Open a command prompt window (for example: BASH).

  2. Paste the command from the text editor into the command prompt window, then run the command.

  3. Get the operation-location from the response header. The value will look similar to the following URL:

https://<your-language-resource-endpoint>/language/analyze-text/jobs/12345678-1234-1234-1234-12345678?api-version=2023-04-01
  1. To get the results of the request, use the following cURL command. Be sure to replace <my-job-id> with the numerical ID value you received from the previous operation-location response header:
curl -X GET $LANGUAGE_ENDPOINT/language/analyze-text/jobs/<my-job-id>?api-version=2023-04-01 \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: $LANGUAGE_KEY"

Text extractive summarization example JSON response

{
    "jobId": "56e43bcf-70d8-44d2-a7a7-131f3dff069f",
    "lastUpdateDateTime": "2022-09-28T19:33:43Z",
    "createdDateTime": "2022-09-28T19:33:42Z",
    "expirationDateTime": "2022-09-29T19:33:42Z",
    "status": "succeeded",
    "errors": [],
    "displayName": "Text ext Summarization Task Example",
    "tasks": {
        "completed": 1,
        "failed": 0,
        "inProgress": 0,
        "total": 1,
        "items": [
            {
                "kind": "ExtractiveSummarizationLROResults",
                "taskName": "Text Extractive Summarization Task 1",
                "lastUpdateDateTime": "2022-09-28T19:33:43.6712507Z",
                "status": "succeeded",
                "results": {
                    "documents": [
                        {
                            "id": "1",
                            "sentences": [
                                {
                                    "text": "At Microsoft, we have been on a quest to advance AI beyond existing techniques, by taking a more holistic, human-centric approach to learning and understanding.",
                                    "rankScore": 0.69,
                                    "offset": 0,
                                    "length": 160
                                },
                                {
                                    "text": "In my role, I enjoy a unique perspective in viewing the relationship among three attributes of human cognition: monolingual text (X), audio or visual sensory signals, (Y) and multilingual (Z).",
                                    "rankScore": 0.66,
                                    "offset": 324,
                                    "length": 192
                                },
                                {
                                    "text": "At the intersection of all three, there’s magic—what we call XYZ-code as illustrated in Figure 1—a joint representation to create more powerful AI that can speak, hear, see, and understand humans better.",
                                    "rankScore": 0.63,
                                    "offset": 517,
                                    "length": 203
                                },
                                {
                                    "text": "We believe XYZ-code will enable us to fulfill our long-term vision: cross-domain transfer learning, spanning modalities and languages.",
                                    "rankScore": 1.0,
                                    "offset": 721,
                                    "length": 134
                                },
                                {
                                    "text": "The goal is to have pre-trained models that can jointly learn representations to support a broad range of downstream AI tasks, much in the way humans do today.",
                                    "rankScore": 0.74,
                                    "offset": 856,
                                    "length": 159
                                },
                                {
                                    "text": "I believe the joint XYZ-code is a foundational component of this aspiration, if grounded with external knowledge sources in the downstream AI tasks.",
                                    "rankScore": 0.49,
                                    "offset": 1481,
                                    "length": 148
                                }
                            ],
                            "warnings": []
                        }
                    ],
                    "errors": [],
                    "modelVersion": "latest"
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

Clean up resources

If you want to clean up and remove an Azure AI services subscription, you can delete the resource or resource group. Deleting the resource group also deletes any other resources associated with it.

Next steps