AI, AI-900, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Microsoft Certification, Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Identify Features and Uses for Sentiment Analysis (AI-900 Exam Prep)

Overview

Sentiment analysis is a Natural Language Processing (NLP) capability that determines the emotional tone or opinion expressed in text. In the context of the AI-900 exam, sentiment analysis is tested as a foundational NLP workload and is typically associated with scenarios involving customer feedback, reviews, social media posts, and support interactions.

On Azure, sentiment analysis is provided through Azure AI Language, which offers pretrained models that can analyze text without requiring machine learning expertise.

What Is Sentiment Analysis?

Sentiment analysis evaluates text to identify:

  • Overall sentiment (positive, negative, neutral, or mixed)
  • Confidence scores indicating how strongly the sentiment is expressed
  • Sentence-level sentiment (in addition to document-level sentiment)
  • Opinion mining (identifying sentiment about specific aspects, at a high level)

Example:

“The product works great, but the delivery was slow.”

Sentiment analysis can identify:

  • Positive sentiment about the product
  • Negative sentiment about the delivery
  • An overall mixed sentiment for the entire text

Azure Service Used for Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is a feature of:

Azure AI Language

Part of Azure AI Services, Azure AI Language provides several NLP capabilities, including:

  • Sentiment analysis
  • Key phrase extraction
  • Entity recognition
  • Language detection

For AI-900:

  • No custom model training is required
  • Prebuilt models are used
  • Text can be analyzed via REST APIs or SDKs

Key Features of Sentiment Analysis

1. Sentiment Classification

Text is classified into:

  • Positive
  • Negative
  • Neutral
  • Mixed

This classification applies at both:

  • Document level
  • Sentence level

2. Confidence Scores

Each sentiment classification includes a confidence score, indicating how strongly the model believes the sentiment applies.

Example:

  • Positive: 0.92
  • Neutral: 0.05
  • Negative: 0.03

Higher confidence scores indicate stronger sentiment.

3. Multi-Language Support

Azure AI Language supports sentiment analysis across multiple languages, making it suitable for global applications.

4. Pretrained Models

Sentiment analysis:

  • Uses pretrained AI models
  • Requires no labeled data
  • Can be implemented quickly

This aligns with the AI-900 focus on using AI services rather than building models.

Common Use Cases for Sentiment Analysis

1. Customer Feedback Analysis

Analyze:

  • Product reviews
  • Surveys
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS) comments

Goal: Understand customer satisfaction trends at scale.

2. Social Media Monitoring

Organizations analyze social media posts to:

  • Track brand perception
  • Identify emerging issues
  • Measure reaction to announcements or campaigns

3. Support Ticket Prioritization

Sentiment analysis can help:

  • Identify frustrated or angry customers
  • Escalate negative interactions automatically
  • Improve response times

4. Market Research

Sentiment analysis helps companies understand:

  • Public opinion about competitors
  • Trends in consumer sentiment
  • Product reception after launch

What Sentiment Analysis Is NOT Used For

This distinction is commonly tested on the exam.

TaskCorrect Capability
Extract names or datesEntity recognition
Identify important topicsKey phrase extraction
Translate textTranslation
Detect emotional toneSentiment analysis

Sentiment Analysis vs Related NLP Features

Sentiment Analysis vs Key Phrase Extraction

  • Sentiment analysis: How does the user feel?
  • Key phrase extraction: What is the text about?

Sentiment Analysis vs Entity Recognition

  • Sentiment analysis: Emotional tone
  • Entity recognition: Specific items (people, places, dates)

AI-900 Exam Tips 💡

  • Focus on when to use sentiment analysis, not how to implement it
  • Expect scenario-based questions (customer reviews, feedback, tweets)
  • Remember: Sentiment analysis is part of Azure AI Language
  • No training, tuning, or ML pipelines are required for AI-900

Summary

Sentiment analysis is a core NLP workload that enables organizations to automatically evaluate opinions and emotions in text. For the AI-900 exam, you should understand:

  • What sentiment analysis does
  • Common real-world use cases
  • How it differs from other NLP features
  • That it is delivered through Azure AI Language using pretrained models

Go to the Practice Exam Questions for this topic.

Go to the AI-900 Exam Prep Hub main page.

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