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

So we were interested to hear this week it’s retiring and reworking Azure Face. This is an AI that can recognise 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 be used to guide the tools it builds.

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

It’s clear that AI tools are the way forward for software. I wonder how that’s going to empower your business in the years ahead?

That’s your tech update, more next week.