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Azure OpenAI vs IBM Watson Machine Learning comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure OpenAI
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Watson Machine Learning
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the AI Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Azure OpenAI is 12.9%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson Machine Learning is 1.8%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Viswanath Barenkala - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers tools to moderate generated content and guidance to safely design applications, but it is not consistently accessible
Instead of a feature, the GPT-4 model has been most beneficial for automating tasks. We transitioned from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4 and actively use it. However, we face limitations due to geographic availability, subscription constraints, and rate limiting, which we are currently negotiating and working towards optimizing. While we haven't formally benchmarked Azure OpenAI's language understanding against industry standards, we find it performs well about 70-80% of the time. Occasionally, we need to refine our queries and adapt our systems accordingly to improve accuracy and effectiveness.
Anurag Mayank - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly efficient solution that delivers the desired results to its users
I had not considered how the solution could be improved because I was focused on how it was helping me to solve my issues. If I consider how we want to use it in our organization, certain areas of improvement can be addressed. For instance, we want to use it with Generative AI, not like ChatGPT, but in a way intended for industrial use. It would be beneficial to incorporate more AI into the solution.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We have many use cases for the solution, such as digitalizing records, a chatbot looking at records, and being able to use generative AI on them."
"The high precision of information extraction is the most valuable feature."
"Two aspects I appreciate are the turnaround time and ease of use. As it's a managed service, the quick turnaround is beneficial, and the simple interface makes it easy to work with. Performance and scalability are also strong points since you can scale as needed."
"Azure OpenAI is easy to use because the endpoints are created, and we just need to pass our parameters and info."
"It's very powerful. It allows users to query our documents using natural language and receive answers in the same way. This makes our product information much more accessible than traditional keyword-based search."
"The most valuable feature of Azure OpenAI stems from the GPT-3.5 models it provides to its users."
"The AI search functionality is particularly effective, as it creates summaries from data."
"You just have to write accurate prompts according to your requirements, and the solution gives very good results."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution's the cost and human labor savings."
"It has improved self-service and customer satisfaction."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution ten out of ten."
"We can enable and change developer productivity with artificial intelligence-recommended code based on natural language input or exciting source code."
"The solution is very valuable to our organization due to the fact that we can work on it as a workflow."
"It is has a lot of good features and we find the image classification very useful."
"I was particularly interested in trying the AutoML feature to see how it handles data and proposes new models. The variety of models it provides is impressive."
 

Cons

"There could be an ability to generate visual data, such as architecture diagrams."
"Azure needs to work on its own model development and improve the integration of voice-to-text services, particularly for right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Urdu."
"The dialogue manager needs to be improved."
"There are certain shortcomings with the product's scalability and support team where improvements are required."
"I faced one issue with Azure OpenAI: My customer wanted more clarity on the pricing. They were not able to get proper answers from the documentation or the pricing calculator. I suggest that Microsoft maintain standardization in the pricing details published in the documentation and the pricing calculator."
"Maybe with the next release, the response will be more precise and more human-like."
"Azure OpenAI should use more specific sources like academic articles because sometimes the source can't be found."
"Latency performance is a major part. And I'm seeking support for multiple models that handle text, images, videos, and voice. I'm from India, and I'm looking for more support in Indian languages. There are 18 official languages and many more unofficial. We need support for these languages, especially in voice moderation, which is not yet available."
"Scaling is limited in some use cases. They need to make it easier to expand in all aspects."
"The supporting language is limited."
"If I consider how we want to use it in our organization, certain areas of improvement can be addressed. For instance, we want to use it with Generative AI, not like ChatGPT, but in a way intended for industrial use."
"In future releases, I would like to see a more flexible environment."
"Honestly, I haven't seen any comparative report that has run the same data through two different artificial intelligence or machine learning capabilities to get something out of it. I would love to see that."
"They should add more GPU processing power to improve performance, especially when dealing with large amounts of data."
"Sometimes training the model is difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost structure depends on the volume of data processed and the computational resources required."
"Regarding pricing and licensing, it's a bit complex due to the minimum purchase requirement for PTO units. We're evaluating the best approach between PTE and pay-as-you-go models. Our organization is cautious about committing to PTE due to the fixed bandwidth reservation, while pay-as-you-go doesn't offer enough flexibility. We're discussing these matters with legal teams to ensure compliance and data security."
"Azure OpenAI is a bit more expensive than other services."
"The licensing is interaction-based, meaning transactional. It's reasonably priced for now."
"I rate the product pricing six out of ten."
"While the product meets our business requirements well, I consider it relatively expensive, especially for individual users like myself."
"The tool costs around 20 dollars a month."
"The pricing is acceptable, and it's delivering good value for the results and outcomes we need."
"The pricing model is good."
"I've only been using the free tier, but it's quite competitive on a service basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
11%
University
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure OpenAI?
The product is easy to integrate with our IT workflow.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure OpenAI?
In the past, the primary expense involved token limitations which constrained scaling. Recent iterations have increased token allowances, mitigating some challenges associated with concurrent user ...
What needs improvement with Azure OpenAI?
Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ) could significantly benefit from including more LLM models apart from OpenAI, as I often need to switch clouds when a model doesn't meet my requirements....
What do you like most about IBM Watson Machine Learning?
I was particularly interested in trying the AutoML feature to see how it handles data and proposes new models. The variety of models it provides is impressive.
What needs improvement with IBM Watson Machine Learning?
Sometimes training the model is difficult. We need to have at least a few different components to evaluate and understand the behavior of different users to have a very, very high accuracy in the m...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure OpenAI vs. IBM Watson Machine Learning and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.