Azure AI Search first steps

Marc Charmois — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:13:58 +0000

If, as me, you tried to make the tutorial of this quick start of Microsoft learn:

Quickstart: Full-text search in the Azure portal
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/search/search-get-started-portal

You have encountered quite a few difficulties, meaning that it is impossible to successfully complete this tutorial for several reasons :

The sample json file in not formatted as an array.

even you transform the json file in an array, and select “json array” in the portal it doesn’t work any better

so rather use this json lines file :

{"hotelId":"1","name":"Hotel Azure","city":"Paris","rating":4.5,"price":180,"amenities":["wifi","gym","spa"],"description":"A modern hotel close to the city center with excellent connectivity."}
{"hotelId":"2","name":"Cloud Inn","city":"London","rating":3.8,"price":120,"amenities":["wifi"],"description":"Affordable hotel hotelIdeal for business travelers."}
{"hotelId":"3","name":"AI Suites","city":"Paris","rating":5.0,"price":320,"amenities":["wifi","spa","pool"],"description":"Luxury suites with premium services and AI-powered concierge."}

copy this in a text file and rename it hotels.jsonl
Then, upload it in a storage account and configure the Keyboard search like this

Doing so, you can finally test the search:

You can find the complete tuto at:

https://azure-ai-notes.blogspot.com/2026/01/full-text-search-azure-ai-search.html

Forem: Marc Charmois

Azure AI Search first steps