Microsoft Build: AI and Windows 11 at the Heart of Announcements

Microsoft Build: A Crucial Meeting for the Future of AI and Windows

This week, Microsoft is heading to San Francisco for its annual Build conference, a key event to reconnect with the developer community. Historically known as the Professional Developers Conference, this gathering holds particular significance as Microsoft continues to refocus its business around artificial intelligence. The choice of a more intimate venue for this event underscores the urgency for the company to restore confidence in its flagship products, Windows and GitHub, and to chart a new course for the future.

Sources say that new AI models in Windows, a new reasoning model from Microsoft AI, and a Copilot super app will be presented. But perhaps more important for Build attendees, it is understood that Microsoft will reveal more about its efforts to improve the Windows experience for developers. Microsoft is said to be unveiling a new experience optimized for developers on Windows 11 this week, which includes many features requested by developers: a distraction-free environment with pre-installed apps, tools, and scripts.

More is also expected on Microsoft's efforts to rewrite certain parts of Windows 11 to improve performance and the overall experience. Microsoft laid out its plan to fix Windows 11 earlier this year, and many preliminary improvements have already been seen. The Windows Insider team is preparing to show more customization changes later today, ahead of the Build opening keynote tomorrow.

Microsoft will also have other news on how Windows is adapting to new silicon like the Nvidia RTX Spark. There is said to be a greater emphasis on local models running on Windows at Build this year, allowing developers to harness local computing power instead of relying on costly cloud models. Windows chief Pavan Davuluri hinted last week that "something new is coming for developers" at Build, so more is expected on the next generation of Microsoft's smaller AI models. Microsoft's and HP's miniature RTX Spark PCs were also notably absent from a list of manufacturers during Nvidia's Computex keynote, so perhaps there is something more to come.

While Satya Nadella will discuss the new RTX Spark announcement with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during his keynote, more is also expected on Qualcomm and its ongoing work with Microsoft to develop Windows on Arm. Qualcomm and Microsoft laid most of the groundwork for Arm improvements in Windows 11, allowing Nvidia to return to Windows on Arm after a rocky start with the Surface RT. Microsoft now has to balance two major Arm silicon suppliers, just as it had to keep both AMD and Intel satisfied over the decades.

Sources also say that Microsoft's very latest internal models will be presented at Build this week. Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman is said to be unveiling a new model, MAI-Thinking-1, at Build, the company's first reasoning model. Microsoft did not use distillation to create its reasoning model, meaning it was not trained by learning from the outputs of another AI model. This reasoning model is mainly intended for enterprise use.

The reasoning model is one of several new models expected at Build, including MAI-Image-2.5 and MAI-Image-2.5-Flash. Suleyman teased the release of MAI-Image-2.5 last week, promising more information at Build.

Microsoft will also discuss its upcoming Copilot super app at Build. Fortune first reported this last week, and it is essentially an application that combines Microsoft's various Copilot AI assistants into a single interface. Sources say that work is underway to build the app, but that the leaked screenshot that appeared on Friday is only a mockup prepared for the Build demos.

The image also includes an early look at Microsoft Scout, which is said to be a new AI agent based on Microsoft's work on OpenClaw. This Copilot super app will not be available at Build, as Microsoft is still building it, so it should not be expected in preview before the end of summer.

Much more is also hoped for on improvements to GitHub at Build this week. It was reported last month that GitHub is facing a fight for its survival at Microsoft, after a wave of departures, outages, and security incidents. Microsoft desperately needs to regain GitHub's trust here, especially as prominent developers begin to sound the alarm. There is no quick fix, but given that Build is led by some members of the GitHub team, Microsoft cannot ignore the problems it faces here.

All the news from Microsoft Build will be covered this week, so stay tuned for full coverage when the conference kicks off at 9:30 AM PT / 12:30 PM ET on Tuesday, June 2.