At Microsoft, we’re dedicated to helping businesses create seamless, interactive experiences that blend advanced communication capabilities with the power of artificial intelligence. We're shipping an updated set of samples, documentations, and videos, to help developers deliver breakthrough integration that leverages Azure Communication Services and Azure OpenAI’s Realtime API. This enables developers to build real-time, low-latency, AI-driven conversational applications that are both scalable and secure.
Bridging communication and AI
Modern customers expect engaging, instantaneous interactions—whether it’s for customer support, live translations, or intelligent voice command applications. With this integration, you can harness the rich media capabilities of Azure Communication Services alongside Azure OpenAI’s powerful Realtime language models. The result? A fluid, bidirectional communication system in which audio is captured, processed, and responded to in near real time.
Why Azure Communication Services?
Azure Communication Services is an AI-ready, cloud-based communications platform that provides APIs for voice, video, chat, and SMS—empowering developers to integrate these capabilities into any application. This ecosystem provides:
- Scalability & Global Reach: Built on Microsoft’s robust cloud that powers scaled applications like Microsoft Teams and Dynamics, Azure Communication Services ensures reliable, low-latency communication across the globe within a unified tech stack.
- Enterprise-Grade Security: Benefit from Azure’s comprehensive security and compliance certifications.
- Flexible Integration: Easily combine voice and video streaming with AI insights to deliver enhanced, interactive customer experiences.
Learn more about at the Azure Communication Services product page.
The power of real-time AI
By integrating Azure OpenAI’s Realtime API with Azure Communication Services, you can convert live audio streams into intelligent interactions. Imagine a customer support system that not only listens to your customers but also understands context, analyzes intent, and generates precise, helpful responses—all as the conversation unfolds.
How it works
- Capture and stream: Azure Communication Services captures high-quality audio from your application’s communication channels. Whether you’re building a call center, a virtual assistant, or an interactive voice response system, Azure Communication Services ensures that every sound is transmitted securely and with minimal latency.
- Process with Azure OpenAI: Azure OpenAI’s Realtime API processes the streamed audio input using advanced language models. The API analyzes the conversation in real time, extracting intent and context.
- Deliver intelligent responses: The API returns processed data as actionable insights or natural language responses. Azure Communication Services then delivers these responses back to the user, closing the loop in an instant.
This seamless, bidirectional flow is inspired by our latest innovations—check out our detailed exploration of bidirectional real-time audio streaming at Ignite 2024.
A developer’s journey: getting started
To help you hit the ground running, we’ve put together an overview of the integration steps, along with sample code and best practices.
Step 1: Set up your environment
Begin by provisioning an Azure Communication Services resource. We offer SDKs in multiple languages (JavaScript, .NET, and more) to quickly integrate voice, video, and chat into your application. Detailed documentation and sample projects are available at:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/openai/realtime-audio-quickstart
Step 2: Stream audio to Azure OpenAI’s Realtime API
Once your Azure Communication Services instance is live, capture real-time audio streams from your application. The following code illustrates how you might forward audio data to Azure OpenAI for processing:
# WebSocket to get bi-directional streaming audio
@app.websocket("/ws")
async def ws(websocket: WebSocket):
await websocket.accept()
handler = CommunicationHandler(websocket)
await handler.start_conversation_async()
while True:
# Receive data from the client
data = await websocket.receive_json()
kind = data["kind"]
if kind == "AudioData":
audio_data = data["audioData"]["data"]
# Send the audio data to the CallAutomationHandler
Step 3: Customize and Scale
With the integration in place, you can further tailor the interaction:
- Real-time transcription and translation: Use Azure OpenAI’s capabilities to transcribe and translate audio on the fly.
- Contextual customer support: Integrate with backend systems to provide personalized support based on conversation context.
- Voice-activated commands: Enable smart assistants that understand and execute user commands in real time.
- Scale with GPT-4o-Mini-Realtime-Preview: With the newly announced GPT-4o-Mini-Realtime-Preview API you can scale your Conversational AI application with reduced latency at a significantly reduced cost.
Unlock new possibilities
By combining Azure Communication Services with Azure OpenAI’s real-time capabilities, you’re not just adding another tool to your stack—you’re creating an ecosystem where communication and intelligence work hand in hand. This integration opens new avenues for customer engagement, automation, and interactive media applications.
We’re thrilled to see how developers and businesses will leverage this powerful combination to transform their communication strategies and build the next generation of intelligent applications.
Get started today
Ready to build real-time conversational AI experiences? Explore the following resources to begin your journey:
- Get started with the sample code: https://github.com/anujb-msft/communication-services-realtime-voice-agent
- Chat with Azure Communication Services experts and join our live learning series on how to build with us in April. Read about this event and register here: aka.ms/register-acs-series.
- Azure Communication Services: Product Page and Documentation.
- OpenAI Realtime API: Refer to OpenAI’s developer resources for guidance on API integration.
- Real-Time Audio Streaming Insights: Ignite 2024 Blog Post.
At Microsoft, we believe that the future of communication lies in the seamless integration of real-time connectivity and intelligent processing. We can’t wait to see what you create!
Microsoft