News Story
A new frontier awaits — computing with light
In the guts of a new type of computer, a bunch of tiny LEDs emit a green glow. Those lights have a job to do. They’re performing calculations. Right now, this math is telling the…
News and Awards
Below please find an index of news and awards that recognize Microsoft researchers’ contribution to scientific research and commitment to advancing computer science.
News Story
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…
News Story
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…
News Story
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…
News Story
Big changes are coming to AI in 2025: Microsoft
According to Ashley Llorens, corporate vice president and managing director at Microsoft Research, AI models will soon be able to handle far more complex tasks, such as triaging customer requests or tracking employee expenses. Additionally,…
Award
Jie Xiong receives SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Paper Award
ArrayTrack: A Fine-Grained Indoor Location System (USENIX NSDI, 2013) introduced a pioneering approach to RF-based indoor localization and wireless sensing by leveraging phase-array-based signal processing. Moving beyond traditional wireless signal strength measurements, it utilized multiple…
News Story
AI agents — what they are, and how they’ll change the way we work
An agent can tackle certain tasks with you or for you, from acting as a virtual project manager to handling more complex assignments like reconciling financial statements to close the books. Microsoft 365 Copilot is…
News Story
AFMR was recognized in the Microsoft Annual Report 2024
Through our Accelerating Foundation Models Research program, we’ve made grants to hundreds of projects in AI safety and alignment research, AI-driven scientific discovery, and beneficial applications of AI. And we launched our Global Perspectives Responsible…
News Story
Ariel Gomez Diaz named one of the Photonics100 for 2025
Microsoft Research senior optical scientist Ariel Gomez Diaz was selected for the 2025 Photonics100 list, which celebrates individuals driving innovation in photonics and optical technology worldwide. Ariel’s work explores revolutionary optical technologies with tangible applications…
News Story
Why Can’t I Vote Online?
Why can’t I vote online? And what would happen if I could? Over the past two months, I called up a bunch of voting and security experts to try to answer that question. And the…