The correct answer is A. Azure AI Document Intelligence (previously known as Form Recognizer). This Azure Cognitive Service is specifically designed to extract structured data and key information from scanned documents, forms, and contracts using advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) combined with machine learning models.
According to the Microsoft Learn module “Extract data from documents with Azure AI Document Intelligence”, this service enables automated data extraction from unstructured or semi-structured documents such as contracts, invoices, receipts, and purchase orders. It identifies key-value pairs, tables, and fields such as names, dates, amounts, and signatures. This makes it ideal for digitizing legal and business documents like contracts into structured formats that can be easily searched or stored in databases.
Azure AI Document Intelligence offers several model types:
Prebuilt models for common documents (invoices, receipts, business cards, etc.).
Custom models trained on your specific contract layouts.
Layout model for extracting raw text, tables, and structures.
The other options are incorrect:
B. Azure AI Immersive Reader enhances reading comprehension and accessibility but does not extract data from documents.
C. Azure OpenAI provides natural language generation and understanding but is not used for scanning or data extraction.
D. Azure AI Search indexes and searches textual or document content but relies on other services (like Document Intelligence) to extract the data first.
Therefore, to automatically extract details such as contract terms, names, dates, and signatures from scanned contract images, the best Microsoft AI service is A. Azure AI Document Intelligence
