---
slug: "azure-ai-language-eight-features-retirement"
title: "Azure AI Language: retirement of eight features"
summary: "Retirement date for eight Azure AI Language features, including Key Phrase Extraction, Sentiment Analysis, CLU, Custom Question Answering and Summarization: 31 Mar 2029. After that date, requests to these features return errors."
cloud: "azure"
service: "Azure AI Language"
service_slug: "ai-language"
category: "feature"
type: "retirement"
announced_date: "2026-04-01"
effective_date: "2029-03-31"
effective_precision: "day"
replacement: null
affected_versions: []
source_url: "https://azure.microsoft.com/updates?id=557394"
extra_source_urls: []
vendor_ref: "557394"
last_checked_at: "2026-11-12T09:55:19.345Z"
created_at: "2026-11-13T13:36:44.208Z"
updated_at: "2026-11-13T13:36:44.208Z"
url: "https://eolwatch.dev/items/azure-ai-language-eight-features-retirement"
short_url: "https://eolwatch.dev/i/bn"
markdown_url: "https://eolwatch.dev/items/azure-ai-language-eight-features-retirement.md"
json_url: "https://eolwatch.dev/items/azure-ai-language-eight-features-retirement.json"
source_note: null
---

# Azure AI Language: retirement of eight features

Retirement date for eight Azure AI Language features, including Key Phrase Extraction, Sentiment Analysis, CLU, Custom Question Answering and Summarization: 31 Mar 2029. After that date, requests to these features return errors.

- Effective date: 31 Mar 2029
- Cloud: [Azure](https://eolwatch.dev/cloud/azure.md)
- Service: [Azure AI Language](https://eolwatch.dev/services/azure/ai-language.md)
- Type: Retirement
- Category: [Feature](https://eolwatch.dev/categories/features.md)
- Replacement: Not stated by vendor
- Announced: 1 Apr 2026
- Official source: [azure.microsoft.com](https://azure.microsoft.com/updates?id=557394)
- Last checked: 12 Nov 2026

## What breaks

Eight Azure AI Language features are retired on the retirement date: Key Phrase Extraction, Sentiment Analysis and Opinion Mining, Custom Text Classification, Conversational Language Understanding (CLU), Custom Question Answering (CQA), Orchestration Workflow, Summarization (extractive and abstractive, for documents and conversations), and Entity Linking. After the retirement date, requests to these features return errors. The related authoring and runtime capabilities in Language Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and the REST APIs are no longer available. Other Azure AI Language features, including Language Detection, PII Detection, Text Analytics for Health, Prebuilt NER, and Custom NER, continue to be supported.

## What to do

Plan migrations ahead of the retirement date using supported alternatives in Microsoft Foundry.

## Replacement

Not stated by vendor.

## Sources

- [Official source](https://azure.microsoft.com/updates?id=557394) (azure.microsoft.com, Official)

Last checked against this source on 12 Nov 2026.

Page: https://eolwatch.dev/items/azure-ai-language-eight-features-retirement | JSON: https://eolwatch.dev/items/azure-ai-language-eight-features-retirement.json

The text on this page is drafted with AI assistance from the vendor's text, checked against the official source and approved by a person before it is published.