Azure model provider

Azure OpenAI is a great option if you’re looking to use the OpenAI model but you need more advanced configuration options and enhanced data privacy(opens in a new tab). With this advanced configuration comes more complexity in setup(opens in a new tab), so choose wisely.

The Azure OpenAI service can be used in a HIPAA-compliant manner.

To use Azure OpenAI with AI Assistant, you’ll need set up the API key and reference the correct deployments in the AI Assistant service configuration file.

Environment variables

  • AZURE_API_KEY — The API key for the Azure OpenAI service. You can retrieve your keys once you’ve created an instance. See the Azure quickstart(opens in a new tab) guide for more information:
services:
  ai-assistant:
    environment:
      - AZURE_API_KEY=your-azure-api-key
  ...

Refer to the configuration options guide for all the configurable environment variables.

Service configuration file

To specify the Azure OpenAI models used by AI Assistant, you’ll need to create a service configuration file, as explained in the model-provider configuration guide.

Our current chat model suggestion for the Azure OpenAI model is gpt4o-mini, along with an embedding model of text-embedding-3-small.

Here’s an example YAML configuration file using the Azure OpenAI setup:

version: '1'


aiServices:
   chat:
      provider:
         name: 'azure'
         instanceName: 'your-instance-name'
         apiKey: 'your-azure-api-key' # Optional
      model: 'your-model-deployment-name'
   textEmbeddings:
      provider:
         name: 'azure'
         instanceName: 'your-instance-name'
         apiKey: 'your-azure-api-key' # Optional
      model: 'your-embedding-model-deployment-name'

Pricing

As you’re providing your own OpenAI API key, you’ll be subject to all the costs related to using the OpenAI or Azure OpenAI service. We’ve created an interactive LLM spend calculator to help you estimate your monthly costs.

What determines your monthly cost?

AI Assistant usage is priced in three main categories, outlined below.

Document ingestion

Each new document added to AI Assistant goes through an ingestion process, which enables search, summarization, and Q&A. Documents are only ingested once, even if multiple users access them later.

Calculator inputs:

  • Number of new documents ingested per month
  • Average document size (for example, small invoices vs. large manuals)

User interactions

Costs are also based on how users interact with documents — whether through summarization, Q&A, or deep research conversations.

Calculator inputs:

  • Number of active users

  • Documents viewed by each user per month

  • Level of engagement:

    • None — No chat usage
    • Low — Occasional summaries or simple queries
    • Medium — Regular in-document conversations
    • High — Frequent follow-ups and deeper context
    • Deep — Analytical, multipart sessions

Redaction (if enabled in your license)

If you’ve licensed the Redaction component, AI Assistant can help redact sensitive content from documents using LLMs.

Calculator inputs:

  • Number of documents redacted per month

Redaction can be used on its own or in combination with other AI Assistant capabilities.

Why use the LLM spend calculator?

Rather than estimate these costs manually, we highly recommend using our calculator to:

  • Accurately factor in current OpenAI pricing
  • Automatically apply the correct token estimates
  • Get a detailed monthly cost breakdown
  • Model different usage scenarios

Try it today and see what your usage might cost!