Revised to promote Azure AI Studio point of entry

Author: HeidiSteen

articles/search/search-try-for-free.md

@@ -8,31 +8,58 @@ author: HeidiSteen
 ms.author: heidist
 ms.service: cognitive-search
 ms.topic: conceptual
-ms.date: 09/13/2024
+ms.date: 09/18/2024
 ---
 
 # Try Azure AI Search for free
 
-If you're new to Azure, you can set up a free trial subscription to explore the services at no charge. One of the Azure services you might want to try is Azure AI Search. Search is an expected component of any front-end app that's backed by content, and increasingly it's a critical component for generative search over content you own.
+If you're new to Azure, you can set up a free trial subscription to explore Azure AI Search and other services at no charge. Information retrieval over your own content is useful for many scenarios including AI generative search.
 
 This article explains how to get the most value from your Azure trial subscription so that you can complete your evaluation of Azure AI Search quickly and efficiently.
 
-## Sign up for a free subscription
+## Step one: Sign up for a free subscription
 
-To try Azure AI Search for free, [start a trial subscription](https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/free-trial/?WT.mc_id=A261C142F). The trial subscription is non-renewable, active for one month, and comes with free credits so that you can create services at no charge. In the United States, the credit amount is USD 200. Equivalent credits are available in other currencies.
+To try Azure AI Search for free, [start a trial subscription](https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/free-trial/?WT.mc_id=A261C142F). The trial subscription is nonrenewable, active for one month, and comes with free credits so that you can create billable services at no charge. 
 
-Although you can create a free search service that doesn't use up your credits, we recommend provisioning the **Basic** tier so that you can work with larger indexes, more indexes, and premium features like semantic ranking.
+At this point in time, the credit is equivalent to USD 200. As always, the exact amount is subject to change, but you can verify the credit on the trial subscription sign-up page.
 
-The [Azure portal](https://portal.azure.com/) is the easiest approach for first-time users who want to create and use Azure resources. You can access and manage all of your subscriptions and resources from the portal. For Azure AI Search, you can use the portal to build components for classic search scenarios and generative search (RAG) workloads.
+Once you sign up, you can immediately use either of these links to access Azure resources and experiences:
 
-## Start with a plan
++ [Sign in to Azure portal](https://portal.azure.com/) to view, manage, and create more resources. You can also use the portal to track your credits and projected costs.
 
-Having a plan of action can help you get the most out of your trial subscription. For Azure AI Search, most newer customers and developers are exploring RAG patterns.
++ [Sign in to Azure AI Studio](https://ai.azure.com) for a no-code approach to deploying models on Azure OpenAI and using Azure AI Search for information retrieval. **We recommend you start here first.**
 
-To evaluate Azure for [RAG scenarios](retrieval-augmented-generation-overview.md), you should have three or five Azure resources for:
+<!-- Although you can create a free search service that doesn't use up your credits, we recommend provisioning the **Basic** tier so that you can work with larger indexes, more indexes, and premium features like semantic ranking.
+
+The [Azure portal](https://portal.azure.com/) is the easiest approach for first-time users who want to create and use Azure resources. You can access and manage all of your subscriptions and resources from the portal. For Azure AI Search, you can use the portal to build components for classic search scenarios and generative search (RAG) workloads. -->
+
+## Step two: "Day One" tasks
+
+[**How to build and consume vector indexes in Azure AI Studio**](/azure/ai-studio/how-to/index-add) is a great place to start.
+
+1. [Sign in to Azure AI Studio](https://ai.azure.com).
+
+1. Create a new hub and project.
+
+1. On the left, under **Components**, select **Indexes**. The Create Index wizard guides you through the remaining tasks.
+
+   + On the **Source Data** page, if you have local files that you want to query using an LLM, upload them. 
+
+   + On the **Index Settings**, you can create a new Azure AI Search service. The wizard selects a matching region automatically, but you choose the pricing tier.
+
+     We recommend Basic for larger data files and more indexes, or Free if your files are less than 50 MB. Basic has more features and storage, but it's billable for the lifetime of the service and it might consume about one third of your available credits if you retain it for the entire trial period.
+
+> [!TIP]
+> Azure AI Search and Azure OpenAI must be in the same region. Currently, these regions provide the most overlap and capacity: **East US**, **East US2**, and **South Central** in the Americas; **France Central** or **Switzerland North** in Europe; **Australia East** in Asia Pacific.
+
+## Step three: Have a plan for next steps
+
+The trial period can go by quick. Having a plan of action can help you get the most out of your trial subscription. For Azure AI Search, most newer customers and developers are exploring RAG patterns.
+
+For a next step evaluation of [RAG scenarios](retrieval-augmented-generation-overview.md), you should have three or five Azure resources for:
 
 - Storing data
-- Deploying embedding and chat models
+- Deploying embedding and chat models (**Azure OpenAI**)
 - Applying AI services for creating AI-generated content during indexing (optional)
 - Adding information retrieval (**Azure AI Search**)
 - Adding a frontend app (optional)
@@ -43,7 +70,7 @@ Generative search requires embedding and chat models. The Azure cloud provides A
 
 Application frontends are useful if you're prototyping a solution for a wider audience. You can use Azure Web apps or build an ASP.NET MVC application for this task. Otherwise, if you're working locally, you can view output in Jupyter notebooks in Visual Studio Code or another IDE. Or view results in console apps or other apps that run on localhost.
 
-## Check regions
+<!-- ## Check regions
 
 Azure AI Search has integrated operations with applied AI in the Azure cloud. Integration depends on services running within the same region. This is a requirement for data residency and for efficient operations.
 
@@ -64,29 +91,21 @@ Continue with the following links to review which regions also provide the model
 > [!TIP]
 > Currently, these regions provide the most overlap and capacity: **East US**, **East US2**, and **South Central** in the Americas; **France Central** or **Switzerland North** in Europe; **Australia East** in Asia Pacific.
 >
-> For Azure AI Vision and AI Search interoperability, choose one of these regions: **East US**, **France Central**, **Korea Central**, **North Europe**, **South East Asia**, or **West US**.
+> For Azure AI Vision and AI Search interoperability, choose one of these regions: **East US**, **France Central**, **Korea Central**, **North Europe**, **South East Asia**, or **West US**. -->
 
-## Create services
+### Create services
 
-1. [Create a search service](search-create-service-portal.md), choosing the Basic tier and a region that also offers a model provider. Most Azure AI Search regions provide higher capacity storage limits. There are just a few that have older and lower limits. For the Basic tier, as you install, confirm that you have a 15-GB partition.
+1. [Create a search service](search-create-service-portal.md) if you don't have one already, choosing the Basic tier and a region that also offers a model provider. Most Azure AI Search regions provide higher capacity storage limits. There are just a few that have older and lower limits. For the Basic tier, as you install, confirm that you have a 15-GB partition.
 
 1. [Create an Azure Storage account](/azure/storage/common/storage-account-create?tabs=azure-portal), choosing a general purpose account and using default settings.
 
 1. [Create an Azure OpenAI resource](/azure/ai-services/openai/how-to/create-resource?pivots=web-portal) as your model provider.
 
-1. [Create an Azure AI multiservice account](/azure/ai-services/multi-service-resource?pivots=azportal) to use applied AI in your indexing workloads and Azure AI Vision multimodal APIs as an embedding model provider. You can create and transform content during indexing if applied AI can be attached. For multimodal APIs, make sure you have chosen a region that provides those APIs. Look for this tile in the Azure Marketplace:
+1. [Create an Azure AI multiservice account](/azure/ai-services/multi-service-resource?pivots=azportal) to use applied AI in your indexing workloads and Azure AI Vision multimodal APIs as an embedding model provider. You can create and transform content during indexing if applied AI can be attached. For multimodal APIs, make sure you choose a region that provides those APIs. Look for this tile in the Azure Marketplace:
 
    :::image type="content" source="./media/search-try-for-free/azure-ai-service-marketplace.png" alt-text="Screenshot of the Azure AI Services offering in the Azure Marketplace.":::
 
-## Estimate costs
-
-During the trial period, you want to stay under the USD 200 credit allocation. Most services are pay-as-you-go, so you won't be charged while they're not in use, but an Azure AI Search service is provisioned on dedicated clusters and it can only be used by you. It's billable during its lifetime. If you provision a basic tier search service, expect Azure AI Search to consume about one third (or USD 70) of your available credits during the trial period.
-
-During the trial period, the Azure portal provides a notification on the top right that tells you how many credits are used up and what remains. 
-
-You can also monitor billing by searching for *subscriptions* in the Azure portal to view subscription information at any time. The Overview page gives you spending rates, forecasts, and cost management.
-
-## Tips for getting the most value from your subscription
+### Try the quickstarts
 
 Try the portal quickstarts for Azure AI Search or quickstarts that use Visual Studio Code with REST or Python extensions.  It's the fastest approach creating searchable content, and you don't need coding skills to complete the tasks.
 
@@ -105,14 +124,22 @@ Developers should review [azure-search-vector-samples](https://github.com/Azure/
 
 Many samples and [accelerators](resource-tools.md) come with bicep scripts that deploy all Azure resources and dependencies, so you can skip installation steps and explore an operational solution as soon as the development completes.
 
-## Use the free tier
+## Step four: Track your credits 
+
+During the trial period, you want to stay under the USD 200 credit allocation. Most services are pay-as-you-go, so you won't be charged while they're not in use, but an Azure AI Search service on the Basic tier is provisioned on dedicated clusters and it can only be used by you. It's billable during its lifetime. If you provision a basic tier search service, expect Azure AI Search to consume about one third of your available credits during the trial period.
+
+During the trial period, the Azure portal provides a notification on the top right that tells you how many credits are used up and what remains. 
+
+You can also monitor billing by searching for *subscriptions* in the Azure portal to view subscription information at any time. The Overview page gives you spending rates, forecasts, and cost management. For more information, see [Check usage of free services included with your Azure free account](/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/check-free-service-usage).
+
+## Consider the free tier
 
 You can create a search service that doesn't consume credits. Here are some points about the free tier to keep in mind:
 
-- You can have one free search service per Azure subscription.
-- You can complete all of the quickstarts and most tutorials, except for those featuring semantic ranking and managed identities for Microsoft Entra ID authentication and authorization.
-- Storage is capped at 50 MB.
-- You can have up to three indexes, indexers, data sources, and skillset at one time. 
++ You can have one free search service per Azure subscription.
++ You can complete all of the quickstarts and most tutorials, except for those featuring semantic ranking and managed identities for Microsoft Entra ID authentication and authorization.
++ Storage is capped at 50 MB.
++ You can have up to three indexes, indexers, data sources, and skillset at one time.
 
 Review the [service limits](search-limits-quotas-capacity.md) for other constraints that apply to the free tier.