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Biggest announcements from Microsoft Build 2026
03 Jun 2026

Microsoft has just kicked off its annual Build conference with a keynote from CEO Satya Nadella. The event was packed with major announcements, including new Surface hardware and updates to Microsoft's in-house AI models.

One of the highlights was the introduction of the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a mini PC optimized for AI development. The device is powered by NVIDIA's new Arm-based Spark RTX chip and comes with 128GB of unified memory.

The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is aimed at developers
Device features

The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box comes pre-installed with Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot, making it a perfect fit for developers.

It also features a pre-configured version of Windows 11 Pro with dark mode enabled by default, a simplified taskbar, and no widgets.

Although Microsoft has not revealed the pricing or full specifications yet, the device is expected to hit US markets later this year.

Windows now gets Linux-like command-line utilities
OS upgrades

Microsoft is making Windows more developer-friendly by adding Coreutils, "Linux-like command-line utilities that run natively" on Windows 11.

The company is also launching support for creating, running, and interacting with Linux containers via its Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

A new Intelligent Terminal will provide context to a developer's preferred AI-powered agent, further enhancing the user experience.

Project Solara is an Android-based OS for device-to-device task transfer
OS innovation

Microsoft also unveiled Project Solara, an Android-based operating system designed to run agents across different devices.

The system was developed in collaboration with Qualcomm and MediaTek, and could eventually work as a companion to PCs or transfer tasks between devices.

During the keynote, Microsoft showcased a couple of sample devices that this technology might run on: a desktop hub and a digital badge.

Scout is an always-on assistant for Microsoft 365 apps
AI launch

Microsoft also launched an always-on assistant called Scout, built on the open-source AI platform OpenClaw.

The assistant works with Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, OneDrive, and Teams to perform background tasks such as organizing calendars or managing expense reporting.

For now, Scout is available in desktop preview for Frontier customers in the US but will be rolled out to more users later on.

MAI-Thinking-1 is Microsoft's first in-house reasoning AI model
AI development

Microsoft also unveiled its first in-house reasoning AI model, MAI-Thinking-1.

The model offers 35 billion active parameters and a 128K context window, making it ideal for "complex multi-step instructions, long-context reasoning and code generation."

Along with this new model, Microsoft also announced updates across its existing models focused on image, voice and code generation as well as transcription.

Microsoft execution containers will make AI agents safer to run
Safety measures

To make AI agents safer to run, Microsoft is introducing something called Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC). This feature will let developers set guardrails for what these agents can access on their devices.

The company is also launching an OpenClaw companion app that would let you set up your own agent or connect to existing ones in a sandboxed environment.

Microsoft's next-gen quantum computing chip
Quantum leap

Microsoft also unveiled its next-gen quantum computing chip, Majorana 2. The company claims that the upgraded chip could accelerate its progress in the field.

It features qubits—units of information in quantum computing—that are 1,000 times more accurate than before.

Microsoft credits the performance boost to a new material stack that includes lead and other compounds.