Microsoft has always been one of the technology leaders. And any leadership position means sometimes making difficult decisions for the greater good.

So, we were interested to hear it’s retiring and reworking Azure Face, an AI that can recognize facial characteristics like gender, age, and expression.

Some believe that kind of AI to be a violation of human rights.

It certainly clashes with Microsoft’s newly published standard for responsible AI, which will guide the tools it builds.

On top of the Azure Face change, Microsoft will limit which businesses can access its Custom Neural Voice service. That is a text-to-speech app that’s said to be very lifelike.

AI tools are the way forward for software. How could that empower your business in the years ahead?