Microsoft just rolled out a suite of AI features to Windows 11 Insiders across classic native apps. Paint gains a prompt-based sticker generator and smart object selection, Snipping Tool introduces an AI-powered smart-snapping screenshot tool, and Notepad adds inline generative text drafting via Ctrl+Q.
GitHub just introduced an autonomous coding agent for Copilot that works directly inside your existing workflow. Developers can assign a GitHub issue to Copilot, and it will spin up a GitHub Actions environment in the background, modify the codebase, and open a draft pull request. It also supports MCP servers and screenshot analysis.
Microsoft just baked its Phi-4-mini model directly into the Edge browser alongside new experimental AI APIs for prompting and text generation. Web developers can now tap local AI capabilities right on the client side without racking up backend costs or sacrificing privacy. The update also rolls out full-document PDF translation and brings Copilot agents directly to the Edge for Business sidebar.
Microsoft just rolled out a wave of Copilot updates for Outlook and Microsoft 365 at Build. Outlook can now automatically summarize search results, email attachments, and upcoming meetings before you join. Copilot Pages is also heading to mobile this month with one-click export to Word docs.
Microsoft just launched Windows AI Foundry at Build 2025, overhauling its Copilot runtime for local inference across CPU, GPU, and NPU silicon. Windows 11 is also gaining native Model Context Protocol (MCP) support so AI agents can control desktop apps directly, alongside an open-sourced WSL.
Microsoft just introduced Microsoft Discovery at Build 2025, an agentic AI platform built to supercharge scientific research and industrial development. It combines a graph-based reasoning engine with specialized AI agents orchestrated by Copilot to tackle everything from hypotheses to HPC simulations. Microsoft researchers already used it to design a non-PFAS datacenter coolant prototype in roughly 200 hours.
Microsoft just officially brought xAI’s Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini to its Azure AI Foundry platform. Hosted and billed directly by Microsoft with full enterprise SLAs, the surprise addition deepens Azure's model lineup—and adds another awkward wrinkle to Microsoft’s increasingly tense alliance with OpenAI.
Microsoft just started rolling out a "Hey, Copilot" hands-free wake word to Windows Insiders. As long as your PC is unlocked, you can start a voice chat without touching a keyboard or mouse. The wake word detection runs locally on-device and is opt-in, but it's currently English-only.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, AMD's Lisa Su, and Microsoft's Brad Smith just testified before the U.S. Senate on winning the global AI race. Altman framed AI as bigger than the internet and pushed for massive energy and computing buildouts, while executives warned that overly strict export controls risk pushing foreign buyers toward Chinese rivals.
Microsoft is bringing support for the open Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol to Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio. It lets agents swap goals, manage state, and trigger cross-cloud workflows securely, so developers aren't locked into a single ecosystem. A Python sample is already live in Semantic Kernel.
Microsoft just expanded its Copilot+ PC family with a 12-inch Surface Pro and 13-inch Surface Laptop starting at $799 and $899. Both feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Plus chip with a 45 TOPS NPU to power local AI experiences like Recall and Click to Do on more affordable hardware.
Microsoft just unveiled a wave of new AI experiences for Windows 11 and Copilot+ PCs, headlined by an on-device agent in Settings that fixes PC issues via plain English. The update also brings dynamic photo relighting, text-to-sticker generation in Paint, and quick AI actions inside File Explorer. Microsoft is steadily weaving agentic automations directly into desktop plumbing.
OpenAI is reportedly acquiring AI coding tool Windsurf (formerly Codeium) for approximately $3 billion, marking the company's largest acquisition to date. The deal hands OpenAI a dedicated developer interface to reduce reliance on Microsoft infrastructure and take on rivals like Cursor and GitHub Copilot directly.
Microsoft is reportedly in talks with xAI to host Elon Musk’s Grok AI model on Azure AI Foundry for developers and internal teams. The move reinforces Satya Nadella's push to turn Azure into the go-to home for every major AI model, even if bringing Musk's tech aboard escalates friction with partner OpenAI.
Microsoft just launched Phi-4-reasoning-plus, an open-weight 14B model that punches way above its weight. Trained on curated synthetic data and GRPO reinforcement learning, it outperforms DeepSeek-R1-Distill-70B on the AIME 2025 math benchmark. Even better, it drops under a permissive MIT license and supports Ollama and vLLM right out of the box.
Microsoft just released its April preview update for Copilot+ PCs, bringing delayed AI features like Recall, Click to Do, and natural language search to general availability. Recall uses on-device NPU processing to retrace past activity with opt-in privacy controls, while Click to Do adds instant contextual shortcuts for on-screen text and images. Why it matters: After months of security overhauls, Microsoft is finally putting its headline local AI features into users' hands to prove whether PC-level ambient AI is worth buying into.
Adobe just launched the public beta of its Content Authenticity app, allowing creators to attach invisible digital credentials to images for free without a Creative Cloud subscription. Through a partnership with LinkedIn, users can embed verified identity badges, disclose AI usage, and opt out of AI training.
Microsoft just announced the Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 spring release, introducing an Agent Store alongside two reasoning agents, Researcher and Analyst. Powered by OpenAI deep reasoning models, the agents tackle complex multi-step research and data analysis, while updates also add cross-app search and audio-enabled notebooks. It signals Microsoft's aggressive push into human-agent collaboration.
Microsoft just rolled out an early access preview of computer use in Copilot Studio, letting agents interact directly with desktop apps and browsers like a human. Instead of relying on APIs, agents click, type, and adapt to UI changes in real time. Why it matters: It turns everyday interfaces into tools for agentic automation without custom code.
Microsoft just began rolling out its controversial Recall feature to Windows Insiders in the Release Preview ring, signaling an imminent wider launch. The tool continuously snapshots user activity on Copilot Plus PCs to make past actions searchable, but now requires explicit opt-in and lets users pause recording at any time. Reaching Release Preview is Microsoft's final milestone before shipping broadly to Windows 11.
