The tedious but necessary process of selecting, testing and tweaking machine learning models that power many of today’s artificial intelligence systems was proving too time-consuming for Nicolo Fusi.

The final straw for the Microsoft researcher and machine learning expert came while fussing over model selection as he and his colleagues built CRISPR.ML, a computational biology tool that uses AI to help scientists determine the best way to perform gene editing experiments.

“It was just not a good use of time,” said Fusi.

So, he set out to develop another AI capability that automatically does the data transformation, model selection and hyperparameter tuning part of AI development – and inadvertently created a new product.

Microsoft announced Monday at the Microsoft Ignite conference in Orlando, Florida, that the automated machine learning capability is being incorporated in the Azure Machine Learning service.