Microsoft has announced the public preview of AI Shell, a tool designed to enhance your shell with AI capabilities. With AI Shell, the Redmond giant says you can interact with various large language models and AI agents in a conversational manner.
Here are some of the highlights of AI Shell, set out by Microsoft:
- The command-line shell (aish) interface
- A framework for creating AI agents and other assistance providers
- A PowerShell module for deeper integration with PowerShell.
- Built-in AI agents to get you started assistance immediately
With this preview of AI Shell, users can pick from two included agents: Azure OpenAI Agent or Copilot in Azure. Explaining the Azure OpenAI Agent, Microsoft writes:
"Azure OpenAI Agent: Powering general-purpose assistance, the Azure OpenAI agent can use any of the AI models provided by Azure open AI to handle broad queries, natural language interpretations or code generation. You can connect it to your deployed Azure OpenAI models if you are looking for more privacy, management of the model settings, or have a model trained with your data. Additionally, you can also utilize OpenAI’s models."
As for Copilot in Azure, Microsoft says:
"Copilot in Azure: This agent brings the power of Copilot in Azure directly to your CLI. It specializes in delivering cloud-centric assistance, providing Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell commands and helping you automate your Azure-specific tasks.To get started with the Copilot in Azure agent you need sign in to Azure with Azure CLI with an account that has the IAM role for accessing Copilot in Azure."
Microsoft has two AI Shell modes for Windows users. If you want it as a self-contained executable that can run in any shell, there"s the standalone executable. There is also the AIShell module for PowerShell 7, which Microsoft recommends, that lets you open AI Shell in a side pane in PowerShell 7, which allows the two to work seamlessly together.
If you want to install AI Shell in PowerShell easily, you can run the following command:
Invoke-Expression "& { $(Invoke-RestMethod "https://aka.ms/install-aishell.ps1") }"
To begin using AI Shell after running the command, type Start-AIShell.
Source: Microsoft