Microsoft unveils AI agent platform, new models and developer platform advancements at Build 2026

Microsoft has announced a series of updates at its Build 2026 conference, introducing a new platform for AI agents, seven new in-house AI models and a range of developer platform capabilities designed to support a new era of "ubiquitous intelligence".

The company said the announcements are focused on enabling developers to build, deploy and manage intelligent systems with greater flexibility, control and security, while meeting enterprise requirements for governance and trust.

Central to the updates is the new Microsoft Agent Platform, which allows developers to build agents using organisational context through Microsoft IQ, deploy them via Microsoft Foundry and access them across Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365. Microsoft said the platform is designed to reduce trade-offs between context and governance, security and speed, and between models and tools.

Microsoft also announced that Microsoft IQ is now generally available across GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio, providing a unified context layer across enterprise and external data.

New capabilities include Work IQ, which captures how work happens across Microsoft 365, organisational systems and external sources, and Web IQ, an AI-first web search stack announced at Build that delivers real-time grounding for agents.

Alongside the platform, Microsoft unveiled a new family of seven in-house AI models, including MAI-Thinking-1, its first reasoning model optimised for complex, multi-step tasks. Additional models span image generation, transcription, voice and coding, reinforcing what Microsoft described as a multi-model ecosystem.

The company also introduced new tools across the stack, including Microsoft Execution Containers, now in preview, which provide secure, operating-system-enforced sandboxes for agents. The Foundry Agent Service, also in preview, for cloud-scale managed agent deployment; and the GitHub Copilot app, in preview, which brings agent-driven development workflows to a native desktop experience.

Beyond software development, Microsoft highlighted applications in scientific research through its Microsoft Discovery platform, which is now generally available as an enterprise AI solution for the full scientific workflow.

The company also outlined progress in quantum computing with its next-generation Majorana 2 chip, citing significant improvements in qubit reliability and a path towards a scalable quantum system later this decade.

Microsoft said these advancements aim to position developers at the centre of innovation in the AI era, giving them greater agency to build intelligent systems with enterprise-grade controls and trust.

See more stories here.