mai-thinking-1-e2cf424b·3 events·first seen Aliases: MAI-Thinking-1
Microsoft introduced MAI-Thinking-1, its first reasoning language model built without distillation from third-party models, comparable in size to Claude Sonnet 4.6. The model uses a mixture-of-experts architecture (1T total / 35B active parameters), was pretrained on 30 trillion tokens of primarily licensed human-generated data, and trained via reinforcement learning across specialist models for STEM, coding, and safety. It scored 97.0% on AIME 2025, placing third behind Claude Opus 4.6 and ahead of DeepSeek V3.2, and is available in private preview via Microsoft Foundry. The release marks a strategic shift as Microsoft moves to reduce dependence on OpenAI models following a renegotiated partnership in April 2026.
Microsoft announced seven new AI models trained from scratch (not distilled from OpenAI), including the flagship MAI-Thinking-1 reasoning model and MAI-Transcribe-1.5, plus a 'Frontier Tuning' reinforcement learning approach for enterprise workflow training. GitHub released a desktop Copilot app designed to manage multiple parallel AI agents with isolated git worktrees and bidirectional canvases. Microsoft also launched Web IQ, an agent-native Bing-powered grounding API already powering search in Copilot and ChatGPT, running 2.5x faster than alternatives with lower token costs. The roundup also covers Nous Research's Hermes Desktop cross-platform agent app, Alibaba's Qwen3.7-Plus multimodal model, and OpenAI's role-specific Codex plugins.
Microsoft unveiled MAI-Thinking-1 and the broader MAI family of models at Microsoft Build 2026, as covered in the Latent Space AINews recap. The announcement represents Microsoft's push into frontier reasoning models under its own brand, distinct from its OpenAI partnership. Technical details of the MAI model family are discussed, signaling a significant strategic move toward Microsoft-native AI model development.