Microsoft announced a broad range of AI projects on Tuesday, including autonomous workplace assistants, new gadgets, Nvidia-powered PCs and an internal reasoning model. The moves aim to shift computing beyond traditional apps toward AI-centered systems.
At the annual Build developer event in San Francisco, company leaders highlighted a strategic change. They seek to replace conventional software navigation with AI agents that handle complex tasks independently. By combining these agents with new hardware, high-performance PCs and proprietary models, Microsoft aims to manage more of the full AI infrastructure and secure business clients amid growing competition from OpenAI and Anthropic.
The company displayed a new machine called the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box equipped with an Nvidia processor. CEO Satya Nadella described it as a “dream machine” and noted he was waiting to purchase one.
Leaders also introduced Project Solara, a set of prototypes ranging from smart-speaker size to keycard-badge dimensions, using chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek. These devices feature screens and microphones but run AI agents connected to cloud systems instead of standard operating systems and apps. Example uses include recording a medical appointment with a nurse.
Nadella stated that new platforms allow rewriting operating rules, giving developers and enterprises freedom to design desired form factors with ubiquitous agents.
Microsoft is competing to sell cloud AI tools for coding and other work while encouraging use of AI on Windows PCs. Nvidia indicated its RTX Spark PC chip will deliver AI locally. The Dev Box follows a recent Nvidia laptop launch and ran a 120-billion-parameter AI model too large for most PCs. These machines target Apple’s premium segment, though analysts expect slow business adoption.
The company is also creating tools to run OpenClaw safely on Windows for enterprise data. OpenClaw coordinates AI agent groups for routine tasks and has gained traction in China. A demo showed IT controls preventing accidental file deletion.
Microsoft plans to add an agent called Scout to Copilot for tasks like collecting decision-needed emails.
Its AI unit released an efficient transcription model and an image model to rival Google’s. MAI Thinking-1, its first reasoning model, matched Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 performance. The unit focuses on medical diagnostics and has partnered with Mayo Clinic to develop healthcare AI using Microsoft’s reasoning and compute resources alongside Mayo’s clinical data.
The partnership goal is faster, better diagnoses with AI acting as a team member.
