AI Frontiers
News & features
In the news | Venture Beat
Microsoft’s Fara-7B is a computer-use AI agent that rivals GPT-4o and works directly on your PC
Microsoft has introduced Fara-7B, a new 7-billion parameter model designed to act as a Computer Use Agent (CUA) capable of performing complex tasks directly on a user’s device. Fara-7B sets new state-of-the-art results for its size, providing a way to…
In the news | TechCrunch
Microsoft built a fake marketplace to test AI agents — they failed in surprising ways
On Wednesday, researchers at Microsoft released a new simulation environment designed to test AI agents, along with new research showing that current agentic models may be vulnerable to manipulation. Conducted in collaboration with Arizona State University, the research raises new questions about…
In the news | VentureBeat
When AI reasoning goes wrong: Microsoft Research shows more tokens can mean more problems
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly capable of complex reasoning through “inference-time scaling,” a set of techniques that allocate more computational resources during inference to generate answers. However, a new study from Microsoft Research reveals that the effectiveness of these…
In the news | TheSequence
One of the Best Agent Frameworks in the Market Just Got Way Better
AutoGen has undergone significant evolution since its inception, driven by the need for more efficient, flexible, and scalable agentic AI systems. The release of AutoGen v0.4 introduces a fundamental architectural shift, addressing prior inefficiencies and enhancing its capabilities.
In the news | VentureBeat
Microsoft’s smaller AI model beats the big guys: Meet Phi-4, the efficiency king
Microsoft launched a new artificial intelligence model today that achieves remarkable mathematical reasoning capabilities while using far fewer computational resources than its larger competitors. The 14-billion-parameter Phi-4 frequently outperforms much larger models like Google’s Gemini Pro 1.5, marking a significant…
In the news | Techcrunch
Microsoft launches Phi-4, a new generative AI model, in research preview
Microsoft has revealed the newest addition to its Phi family of generative AI models. Called Phi-4, the model improves in several areas over its predecessors, Microsoft claims, particularly in solving math problems. That’s partly the result of better training data…
In the news | Tech Brew
Microsoft researcher on the future of AI agents in 2025
One of the key questions driving Ece Kamar’s research as managing director of Microsoft’s AI Frontiers Lab is how to coordinate networks of these agents—AI systems that can perform autonomous tasks beyond the scope of chatbots. Late last year, her…
In the news | Eye on AI (podcast)
Why AI Agents Are the Next Big Thing in Tech
In this episode of the Eye on AI podcast, we dive deep into the world of AI agents with Ece Kamar, VP of Research and Managing Director of AI Frontiers Lab at Microsoft. Ece shares her unique insights on the…
In the news | Microsoft News Center
Why AI sometimes gets it wrong — and big strides to address it
Around the time GPT-4 was making headlines for acing standardized tests, Microsoft researchers and collaborators were putting other AI models through a different type of test — one designed to make the models fabricate information.