Language Understanding (LUIS) Azure AI Language
Legacy names Language Understanding (LUIS), Azure Text Analytics, QnA Maker
Unified natural language processing (NLP) service providing named entity recognition, PII detection, sentiment analysis, summarization, conversational language understanding (CLU), and custom question answering (CQA).
Naming timeline
- Azure Text Analytics, LUIS & QnA Maker
Operated as three separate Cognitive Services APIs and portals for text analytics, intent recognition (LUIS), and FAQ knowledge bases (QnA Maker).
- Azure Cognitive Service for Language
Unified Text Analytics, LUIS (into Conversational Language Understanding), and QnA Maker (into Custom Question Answering) under a single service and Language Studio.
- Azure AI LanguageCurrent name
Rebranded from Azure Cognitive Service for Language to Azure AI Language (also referred to as Azure Language in Foundry Tools).
What is Language Understanding (LUIS) called now?
Language Understanding (LUIS) was consolidated into Azure AI Language, with the latest change on 18 July 2023 (Azure AI Rebrand). Earlier names covered by this entry also include Azure Text Analytics, QnA Maker. Unified natural language processing (NLP) service providing named entity recognition, PII detection, sentiment analysis, summarization, conversational language understanding (CLU), and custom question answering (CQA). Only the customer-facing name changed; the underlying technical identifiers remain backward compatible.
Also known as
- Azure Cognitive Service for Language
- Azure Language in Foundry Tools
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: TextAnalytics) |
|---|---|
| Azure CLI (az) / PowerShell | az cognitiveservices account create --kind TextAnalytics |
| Entra ID / Azure RBAC Roles | Cognitive Services Language Reader Cognitive Services Language Writer Cognitive Services Language Owner |
| Terraform Resources (azurerm_*) | azurerm_cognitive_account |
Unified Azure AI Language resources use Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts with kind = 'TextAnalytics', whereas legacy standalone LUIS.Authoring and QnAMaker resource kinds are retired.
Notes & disambiguation
- Announced at Microsoft Ignite on November 2, 2021 as Azure Cognitive Service for Language, consolidating three formerly separate services: Azure Text Analytics, QnA Maker (succeeded by Custom Question Answering), and Language Understanding / LUIS (succeeded by Conversational Language Understanding).
- Rebranded to Azure AI Language in July 2023 (and surfaced as Azure Language in Foundry Tools). Standalone QnA Maker creation ended in October 2022 with full retirement on October 31, 2025 (extended from March 31, 2025), and standalone LUIS retired on October 1, 2025.
- ARM provisioning uses Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts with kind set to TextAnalytics via az cognitiveservices account create or Terraform azurerm_cognitive_account.
Sources & official documentation
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