Prepare to use the AI Content Understanding API

  • 5 minutes

Before you can use the Azure Content Understanding API, you need a Microsoft Foundry resource in your Azure subscription. You can provision this resource in the following ways:

  • Create a Microsoft Foundry resource in the Azure portal.
  • Create a Microsoft Foundry project, which includes a Microsoft Foundry resource by default.

Tip

Creating a Microsoft Foundry project enables you to use visual tools to create and manage Azure Content Understanding schemas and analyzers.

After you've provisioned a Microsoft Foundry resource, you need the following information to connect to the Azure Content Understanding API from a client application:

  • The Microsoft Foundry resource endpoint
  • One of the API keys associated with the endpoint.

You can obtain these values from the Azure portal, as shown in the following image:

Screenshot of the Microsoft Foundry settings in the Azure portal.

If you're working within a Microsoft Foundry project, you can find the endpoint and key for the associated Foundry resource in the Foundry portal project home page.

When working in a Microsoft Foundry project, you can also write code that uses the Microsoft Foundry SDK to connect to the project using Microsoft Entra ID authentication, and retrieve the connection details for the Microsoft Foundry resource.

Installing the Python SDK

To use the Python SDK for Content Understanding, install the azure-ai-contentunderstanding package:

pip install azure-ai-contentunderstanding

Note

The Python SDK requires Python 3.9 or later. You can also use the REST API directly from any language that supports HTTP requests.

Important

Before using the Content Understanding API, you must set up default model deployments for your Microsoft Foundry resource. Content Understanding requires GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1-mini, and text-embedding-3-large model deployments. You can configure these in the Azure portal or by using the API. For more information, see Set up model deployments.

Tip

To learn more about programming with the Microsoft Foundry SDK, complete the Develop an AI app with the Microsoft Foundry SDK module.