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Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision Azure AI Vision

Legacy names Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision, Project Oxford Vision API

Image and video analysis service providing optical character recognition (OCR), image tagging and captioning, spatial video analysis, and facial detection and liveness verification.

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Naming timeline

  1. Project Oxford Vision API

    · Microsoft Build 2015 Preview

    Initial preview of Microsoft's cloud computer vision and face recognition REST APIs under Project Oxford.

  2. Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision

    · General Availability

    Generally available as Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision for OCR, image tagging, and spatial analysis.

  3. Azure AI VisionCurrent name

    · Azure AI Services Rebrand (Image Analysis 4.0 GA Nov 2023)

    Rebranded from Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision to Azure AI Vision (and surfaced as Azure Vision in Foundry Tools).

What is Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision called now?

Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision is now called Azure AI Vision, with the latest change on 18 July 2023 (Azure AI Services Rebrand (Image Analysis 4.0 GA Nov 2023)). Earlier names covered by this entry also include Project Oxford Vision API. Image and video analysis service providing optical character recognition (OCR), image tagging and captioning, spatial video analysis, and facial detection and liveness verification. Only the customer-facing name changed; the underlying technical identifiers remain backward compatible.

Also known as

  • Azure Vision in Foundry Tools
  • Azure Vision
  • Computer Vision
  • Azure AI Face

Technical identifiers

Technical identifiers unchanged. Only the customer-facing product name changed; the APIs, CLI commands, IAM roles and Terraform resources below keep their legacy identifiers for backward compatibility.

ARM Resource Providers (Microsoft.*)Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts (kind: ComputerVision) Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts (kind: Face)
Azure CLI (az) / PowerShellaz cognitiveservices account
Entra ID / Azure RBAC RolesCognitive Services User Cognitive Services Contributor
Terraform Resources (azurerm_*)azurerm_cognitive_account

ARM resource provider Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts (kind 'ComputerVision'), az cognitiveservices account, Cognitive Services User, and azurerm_cognitive_account remain active.

Notes & disambiguation

  • Introduced in 2015 under Project Oxford Vision APIs and launched as Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision in 2017, the service was rebranded to Azure AI Vision in July 2023 (and is also labeled 'Azure Vision in Foundry Tools' in 2025–2026 Microsoft Foundry documentation), bringing together Florence-powered Image Analysis 4.0, Read OCR, Spatial Analysis, and Face APIs.
  • Note that Microsoft has announced the planned deprecation and retirement of the Image Analysis 4.0 API within Azure Vision effective September 25, 2028 (alongside the March 31, 2025 retirement of Image Analysis 4.0 preview APIs), while OCR, Spatial Analysis, and Face APIs continue and multimodal vision workloads increasingly use Microsoft Foundry models.
  • Underlying infrastructure continues to use ARM resource provider Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts with kind 'ComputerVision' (and 'Face'), CLI command group az cognitiveservices account, RBAC role Cognitive Services User, and Terraform resource azurerm_cognitive_account.

Sources & official documentation

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