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Microsoft Build 2024: Four AI Innovations Poised to Reshape Enterprise Productivity
Microsoft’s latest Build developer conference delivered a targeted suite of new AI features, products, and platforms with the potential for tangible business impact. From agentic desktop strategies to unique hardware partnerships, the announced changes reveal critical shifts in Microsoft’s enterprise AI approach. This article distills key takeaways—each substantiated by direct details from the event—that matter for business owners and enterprise decision makers evaluating investments and strategy alignment in the evolving AI landscape.
Agentic Desktop: Microsoft Copilot Super App and Autopilots
A significant focus at Build 2024 was the introduction of agentic desktop via the forthcoming Copilot Super App and a new tier of “autopilot” AI agents. The Copilot Super App, explicitly referenced for summer release, is designed as a unified workspace for intelligent automation, moving beyond responsive chatbots to proactive, context-aware agents. The lead example is “Scout,” an autopilot agent with the capability to autonomously manage tasks like meeting prep, calendar conflict resolution, follow-ups, reminders, and cross-platform work coordination across Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint 08:00.
Scout and the broader autopilot framework position Microsoft's AI as a background assistant, capable of continuous task execution without manual prompting. These agents carry unique permission sets and identities, designed for secure action-taking within enterprise work systems. As of Build, autopilots are available only for select customers and remain in private preview, gated by criteria including participation in the “Frontier” program and integration requirements such as InTune and GitHub Copilot licensing 10:13. The trajectory for these autonomous worker agents suggests a gradual, security-conscious rollout with potential to lower operational friction for companies once broadly available.
Microsoft AI Models: MAI Thinking One and MAI Code One Flash
Microsoft formally launched its in-house MAI (Microsoft AI) models, with emphasis on the “Thinking One” large language model and the “Code One Flash” for programmatic tasks 13:05. MAI Thinking One is a 35-billion active parameter model, tailored for reasoning, long-context applications, math, and code generation 13:54. Unlike many trillion-parameter frontier models, this medium-sized model aims for efficiency and practical enterprise deployment.
Benchmarking places MAI Thinking One near the performance of models like Opus 4.6—demonstrating a six to eight-month lag behind leading offerings but notable for a first-generation in-house result 15:07. Microsoft rounds out its stack with a total of seven proprietary models spanning reasoning, coding, image generation, transcription, and voice. Although not yet widely available, enterprise tuning options are set to become available for select early customers, promising greater control and potential cost advantages for specific enterprise needs 18:33.
While Microsoft has not immediately closed the gap with the most advanced industry labs, the rapid progress from zero to competitive standing in multiple AI modalities indicates growing internal capability. Still, the value to most organizations currently lies in supplementary or cost-sensitive applications, not yet as primary production models 17:32.
Local AI Hardware: RTX Spark Laptops and Surface Dev Box
A defining hardware announcement was Microsoft's partnership with NVIDIA to deliver the RTX Spark laptop series and the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, engineered for robust local AI inference 20:13. These machines boast enough compute for running local models once reserved for data center infrastructure, targeting technical users, developers, and organizations with edge computing needs.
Beyond high performance, the initiative sets hardware consistency across the PC ecosystem, with intent to enable AI execution locally—addressing privacy, latency, and regulatory constraints that limit reliance on cloud providers 22:31. This hardware push, coupled with the development of small local models such as the Ion series, signals that local device inference will become standard for enterprise AI workflows, enabling sensitive data handling and improving accessibility for regulated industries.
Embodied AI Bridge: Project Solera Platform
Build 2024 also introduced “Project Solera,” a chip-to-cloud platform aimed at agent-first devices, created as a joint venture with Qualcomm 25:22. Unlike traditional app-centric devices, Solera is intended for future workflows organized around autonomous agents. The demonstration included two prototype form factors: a wearable badge and a desk device, each featuring cameras, microphones, and context-aware sensors 27:28.
Solera is being positioned for enterprise environments where traditional computers are impractical—such as healthcare facilities, warehouses, logistics, frontline retail, or industrial environments—and where frictionless, secure agent access and communication can drive productivity 28:35. Privacy and surveillance implications remain, especially since these devices could double as monitoring hardware, but Microsoft is pursuing pilot deployments with firms in healthcare, retail, and other operationally complex verticals.
Strategic Perspective: Aiming for Medaling Across the Stack
Microsoft’s AI strategy, as revealed at Build, demonstrates a breadth-first approach, rather than seeking to dominate any single segment. The combination of proprietary AI models, robust hardware partnerships, agentic desktop software, and infrastructure for future embodied AI workflows positions Microsoft as a persistent top-tier competitor 33:13. Regardless of immediate wins in any category, tight integration with OpenAI and Anthropic ensures business value from cross-ecosystem advancements 35:03.
For business decision makers, the practical implication is that Microsoft’s full-stack offerings reduce risk: even if third-party models or tools eclipse in narrow use cases, investments in Microsoft Copilot, hardware, or infrastructure yield residual value through synergy and future readiness. The direction is clear—local inference, agentic assistants, tunable company-specific models, and infrastructure for hybrid AI workflows are no longer theoretical but actively being realized, with growing enterprise access over the next twelve to eighteen months 39:17.
Microsoft Build 2024 outlined a cohesive strategy where being a consistent contender across AI hardware, software, and deployment models may prove more durable than sporadic breakthroughs. Upcoming releases in these highlighted categories warrant close monitoring for those seeking to balance innovation, security, and operational continuity.
Topics Covered in This Episode:
- Microsoft Build 2024 Top AI Takeaways
- Copilot Super App and Autopilots Launch
- Scout Agent for Autonomous Desktop Work
- Microsoft MAI Thinking One Language Model
- MAI Models vs. Frontier AI Benchmarks
- NVIDIA Partnership: RTX Spark AI Laptops
- Surface RTX Spark Dev Box for Local AI
- Project Solera: Agent-First AI Devices
- Solera Enterprise Use Cases & Privacy Impacts
- Microsoft's AI Ecosystem Competitive Strategy
Episode Transcript
Jordan Wilson [00:00:17]:
Microsoft just wrapped up its annual build developer conference in San Francisco. So, obviously, there's, like, a 197 new pieces of AI hardware, software, infra, dev tools, and more. And I'm not gonna painstakingly read them all off to you on today's episode. You know I go long as we'll just link to those in the newsletter anyways. But I was lucky enough to get to attend the conference in San Francisco, talking with Microsoft c suite leaders, product managers, developers, and more. And while the announcements were buzzy, I'm not personally walking away buzzing from any one certain update. And that may be because I'm personally a Mac user, so many of these AI advancements aren't going to touch my daily workflow. However, the totality of what Microsoft announced actually showed that it is beyond serious about competing at the highest level in the AI era, even though it may not win any single race.
Jordan Wilson [00:01:17]:
In the hundreds of new AI updates are obviously gonna change how millions of enterprises work. That's why on today's show, we're gonna highlight the four biggest takeaways that I had and that you need to know from Build and how they'll shape the future of AI in the workplace. Alright. So here is the big picture. So even though this is a developer conference, there's plenty of new updates for non technical business leaders as well. And Microsoft showed all of its cards. It's going all in on agentic desktop, not just with its open claw integration, but with new local models, new hardware, and software. And I think though that Microsoft is still very far behind in some areas of AI, yet it's setting the tone in other AI eras.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:11]:
But I don't even necessarily think it matters which category they may win or may not win because in the end, I think Microsoft is always just gonna be a top two or three company in just about everything, and that seems to be their strategy. So on today's show, you're going to know the four biggest AI moves that Microsoft made at Build and my thoughts on them. I'm gonna tell you why I don't think it matters if Microsoft's new models that they announced. Yeah. Seven of them total. Not all of them knew, but some of them knew. I'm gonna tell you why I don't think it matters if they're successful or not. And you're gonna know why Microsoft's small hardware plays can help overcome their big model problems.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:52]:
Let's get into it. My name is Jordan Wilson. Welcome to Everyday AI. If you're new here, yeah, Everyday AI, you guess it by the name. We do this every day. We bring you the latest and the greatest unbiased takes, in this daily livestream podcast and free daily newsletter. I help you make sense of what's important, what's not. You use that information to grow your company and your career.
Jordan Wilson [00:03:13]:
So starts here with the unscripted, unedited daily podcast, but to take it to the next level, make sure you go to our website at youreverydayai.com. We're gonna be recapping today's show and giving you all the other AI news that you need to know to get ahead. So Microsoft Build, great conference. Right? You you know, I am lucky enough to get to go to a handful of conferences a year. I've done Microsoft's Ignite conference that's maybe more for general business leaders, and then Build is for developers. But I will tell you this, even what was covered in this build is much different than what's been covered in years past. Right? Some of the normal build tools. Right? Some of the more, developer, centric tools that normally are grabbing all the headlines barely gotten mentioned.
Jordan Wilson [00:04:02]:
And I think that's just indicative of where we're at in today's day and age. Right? The tools are changing. The capabilities are shifting. And even what it means to be a developer, that bar is being lowered. And I don't think that that's a bad thing necessarily. And I think before we even talk about, you know, here's what's new. Right? All those things. I think we have to hit rewind because it's important to put this into context.
Jordan Wilson [00:04:29]:
Right? Yes. The AI race is changing all the time, and I'm gonna get a little bit into why I think Microsoft strategy is actually really smart. But there was some reporting about Microsoft's own internal code red, back in September. So that's essentially according to reports. There was an internal town hall where, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that he was haunted at the prospect of Microsoft not surviving the AI era. Did he actually mean that? I don't know. Right. Maybe that was just a, you know, a rallying call to, you know, get the troops, you know, working together on a more unified version.
Jordan Wilson [00:05:08]:
You know, we're gonna talk about their, you know, super app, which they kind of talked about, but kind of didn't. Right? But there was this narrative as recent as, like, eight or nine months ago that internally, Microsoft felt that they were gonna get squeezed out of the AI race. And I think some of these announcements show that, you know, their moves have paid off. And just because right? And I I I know what you're probably thinking if you're listening to this. Right? You're like, oh my gosh. You just think of Microsoft in their AI play as Microsoft three sixty five Copilot. And there's no denying that it's not anyone's top three choice. Although it could be if you get everything set up correctly, but it's an uphill climb to even understand where to use Copilot because there's literally hundreds, and that is not an exaggeration.
Jordan Wilson [00:06:00]:
There's hundreds of different offerings within Microsoft three sixty five that have that Copilot tag. Right? So I don't think when you're talking about Microsoft and just overall as a company, you can't judge them just by Copilot. And I think that, you know, maybe the response to the reported code red, is paying dividends. And let's talk about it by the first big update. So this one is called autopilots. Alright. So, essentially, Saidi Nadella said one sentence that hardly no one talked about. Right? There's obviously, you you know, I'm getting to meet, you know, all the journalists from all over the world.
Jordan Wilson [00:06:41]:
So which is funny. Sometimes I get thrown in as an analyst. Sometimes I get thrown into this media. Sometimes I get thrown in as creator. I think this is, Microsoft has labeled me as something else each time. Anyways, you you know, I do get to talk to, you know, press and media people from all over the world. And I literally didn't see anyone else mention this one thing that Saidiya Nadella said. He in reference did reference or sorry.
Jordan Wilson [00:07:06]:
In passing, he referenced the super app, and he just said the Copilot super app coming this summer. There's no on screen visual. So, you you know, that was one of the things that I was personally keeping an eye on because we did see leaks. You know, so there was talk that maybe that they were going to officially announce it, so they kind of did. So Satya just referenced it in passing and said, yeah. The Copilot Super App is coming this summer. He literally said that one line, it was almost a rushed transitional line, and no one talked about it. Right? So he didn't mention it.
Jordan Wilson [00:07:38]:
So the super app is coming, but what completes the super app is this first thing, and this is the autopilots. Alright? So, essentially, you know, you have these four different phases of Copilot, and the newest phase, right, is the autopilots. Alright? And the first autopilot is named Scout. So let's just quickly talk about this. So I would say this is the biggest announcement, and this is really where, you know, Microsoft wants Copilot to start, well, doing work for you. Right? Where, you know, they have their Microsoft co work and, yes, you can run scheduled things on co work, but for the most part, you know, you are still going in there and pushing the buttons and building the workflows. It's not necessarily an autonomous agent. That's what they're trying to get to with autopilots in their first autopilot named Scout.
Jordan Wilson [00:08:26]:
So autopilots are Microsoft's new category of AI agents that just keep working in the background. So they're not just waiting for a prompt. They have their own identity, their own permissions, and then the ability to act across different work systems. And then Scout is their first autopilot. Alright? So autopilot is the kind of the category name. Alright? And, presumably, there's going to be different, autopilots and Scout is the first one. So that is essentially the always on Microsoft three sixty five agent. And then it can work across Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, calendar files, etcetera.
Jordan Wilson [00:08:59]:
Right? Anywhere where your work context is or your work IQ, you know, Scout can go there and take in all that data. So, you know, essentially, Copilot just answers questions, and autopilots are designed to do work. Right? So Scout, according to Microsoft, can help with meeting prep, scheduling conflicts, follow ups, reminders, task handoffs, and work coordination. So it can just work on its own, right, and kind of give you what you need, or you can kind of, you know, communicate to it like you would an assistant, and then it can just go off and work autonomously on a goal. So we've talked about this. If you haven't listened to our start here series FYI, I think we might cap it at 30 episodes. Right? It's nice. You can listen to one a day if you're new.
Jordan Wilson [00:09:43]:
But we have talked about the shift from reactive prompting AI chats like you would in Copilot to now proactive. So that's what Microsoft is trying to get here. So Scout is right now, though, limited to only select private preview customers and Frontier organizations. Also yeah. So you need to be, enrolled in Frontier. It had the InTune setup, and you have to opt in, and you also need a GitHub Copilot license. So at least right now, there's a lot of criteria, a lot of check boxes. If your organization wants to use, Scout, I think I looked, you know, it's it's been announced now for, like, forty eight hours.
Jordan Wilson [00:10:27]:
I was like, has anyone actually used it? I think I saw, like, two videos on YouTube, right, which is not a lot when the you know, obviously, Microsoft Copilot has millions of customers. So to only have, you know, two people out there that have, like, hey. I have access to this, and I can share about it. You know, I'm guessing there's not a lot of people out there that do have access. But, I mean, the upside's big. Right? Obviously, the rest of 2026 is gonna be dominated by two things. They're kinda the same. Right? But autonomous agents, number one.
Jordan Wilson [00:10:57]:
But the other half of that is ones that work on your desktop. Right? So, that is big because then it can work with your local context. Right? And then it can also use your computer and use your browser. So it's also risky. Right? And that's why, you know, I do think Microsoft is obviously taking a very measured, and and rolled out approach to this because of the risk. You know, as great as it is, if you do have a a background agent that is just proactively, you you know, grabbing details that are important out of your calendar, something changed, you know, helping you, respond to emails, you know, doing research on your competitors, tracking pricing changes, all those things without you having to tell it. It can also do those type of tasks, but going a little off the guardrails. Right? All you need is, like, a 1% drift from an autonomous agent, and you don't check it enough, all of a sudden, yeah, that 1% is very far off base.
Jordan Wilson [00:11:58]:
So the real question you have to be asking yourself is, can this agent help? Right? Is it going to get you over a big whole hurdle that right now you can't do with any of the other 100 plus instances of Microsoft Copilot or within CoWork, right, that's powered by INTROPICS technology where you can, you know, essentially have autonomous esque, scheduled runs. So, I mean, bottom line, autopilot's Microsoft's move from AI assistant to, you know, proactive AI workers, and then Scout is the first example. But I think for most companies, this is still just a preview of what Microsoft is trying to envision for the future. And I don't think, right, in terms of a a general availability, I I I don't think it's gonna be for a while. Right? Maybe maybe late twenty twenty six, but I wouldn't be surprised if things get pushed back for security reasons. But they are, regardless, showing their cards there, pretty big splash. Alright. Number two.
Jordan Wilson [00:13:00]:
We finally got the Microsoft large language models. Well, technically, medium language models. So Microsoft did a lot to position their new models, the MAI, series. So, essentially, they had the MAI thinking one, and then the MAI Code one Flash. Alright? So they had already been, releasing and announcing some of their other multimodal models over the last couple of weeks. So most of them are fairly new, but the two new ones that were announced were their versions of large language models. So Microsoft in total now has seven new in house MAI models across reasoning, coding, image, transcription, and voice. But the headline, obviously, is their new MAI thinking one, which is their first in house reasoning model.
Jordan Wilson [00:13:54]:
And it's a 35,000,000,000 active parameter model built for reasoning, long context work, math, and cogeneration. So if you don't follow, you know, LLM stats like I used to follow basketball stats in the nineties. That's technically a a a medium sized model. Right? We don't know the number of active parameters for the, you know, the GPT five five to the world, the Opus, you know, for, Opus four eight, and when we presumably get a Gemini three five pro. But, presumably, those are at least 1,000,000,000,000, probably multiple trillions of parameters. So this is an order of magnitude smaller, right, which is in theory a good thing. Because in terms of benchmarks, right, we're not really gonna go over this, but, essentially, this performs, at about in, Opus four six level, give or take. Right? So what does that mean? That means they're about six months behind the frontier.
Jordan Wilson [00:14:50]:
So this is more on pace, with some of the better open source models. Right? Not the best. So a lot of people it was actually confusing and and kind of funny. You know, and this just shows me maybe I I I am way too terminally online and follow AI too much. Right? They put something up on the screen, you know, saying that, you know, m a, m a I thinking one, you know, beat Opus four six in a certain benchmark. And, like, a third of the crowd went absolutely wild. Right? And I kind of chuckled because I think those people probably don't follow benchmarks, and they thought, like, oh my gosh. You know, it's better than one of the best models in the world, you know, not knowing we're already obviously on Opus 4.8.
Jordan Wilson [00:15:32]:
So I chuckled at that one. But still, that's telling. You know, if Microsoft's first in house large model is already and then I say this already. Right? If they're only, you know, like, eight months behind the frontier, that's not entirely terrible. Right? Especially that it's only 35,000,000,000 active parameters. Alright? So it is smaller. You know, those are active parameters, not total parameters. So, you know, it's smaller than, you know, the, presumably, the competitors that are punching around the same weight.
Jordan Wilson [00:16:08]:
So, not not bad, but I do think that they've had a little bit more impressive, impressive results. These were not announced, you know, at, build. These were announced, about a week or two before, but their new image models did really, really well, on benchmarks. You know, I think they you know, it was, like, number two, and then it kinda got pushed down a couple spots because there are some new, image models that just were released. But, you know, regardless, it looks like Microsoft on certain modalities is going from zero to a top three lab, which is pretty impressive. Right? I said the same thing. I think people were kind of, you know, poo pooing on Meta when they released their, MetaMuse Spark. Right? Because, rewind to two years ago, right, the llama models were serious contenders in the frontier, and then they absolutely fell off.
Jordan Wilson [00:16:56]:
And, you know, essentially, Meta started for they started over, and they came out with their MetaMuse Spark. And even though it wasn't like a top five frontier model, you know, it wasn't bad. Right? To go from zero to six to nine months behind, I know that sounds crazy for an organization, you know, a multiple trillion dollar market cap like Microsoft that has all the resources in the world, but it's not easy. It's not easy to go from zero to contender in six to nine months. So from that aspect, tip your cap to them. Is anyone gonna be using these models? I I don't know. Right? Maybe, you know, they are gonna probably cost less than Frontier, models if if if companies maybe, have to stick within the Microsoft ecosystem. But at least for me, you know, I'll maybe demo it, try it, but there's no use cases, at least that I know of, where I would actually be using any of these in production.
Jordan Wilson [00:17:51]:
And I would assume most of our audience is probably gonna be the same, like I said, unless you're some unicorn of an enterprise where you can literally only use a Microsoft AI, which I don't think that's the case because Copilot obviously is built in, supports for, the GPT and the cloud models as well. Also, at least right now, MAI thinking one is not broadly available. Right? So some of these things you can go and, you you know, test them on, ARENA with the different, you know, the the transcribed model and, you know, the image models. So they're not, generally available yet. So, the upside, right, cost and control. Also, there's the frontier tuning, which is going to be limited, and available to select early partners. Right? So to be able to, tune a Microsoft model with your enterprise data, right, that's that's a nice thing to have. But, this does not mean that Microsoft is a top three, lab.
Jordan Wilson [00:18:54]:
I did think, you know, heard references that they want to be considered a top four lab. Does this put them there? Not yet. Can they get there? Absolutely. Right? I would assume that we would see updates, to the m a, MAI thinking one model, right before Ignite. I would assume that they'll eventually get on the same, you know, forty ish day release schedule, forty to sixty days. So we'll see, number one, when are they gonna bring it to the masses? Number two, when is the next update gonna be? And is that update going to be, a small update? Or is that gonna say, okay. They can be a top five model provider. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:19:34]:
Next big update, hardware. Alright. So we did talk a little bit about this on our Monday news show because technically, this hardware was announced by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong at Computex. So we'll go through this a little bit quicker. But, obviously, Satya Nadella did announce this, and it's a pretty big deal. Essentially, this one, they're going for Apple. Right? For the first time, I think you have highly capable Windows PCs that are really good. Right? The specs, they look good.
Jordan Wilson [00:20:11]:
Personally, I like the marketing behind them. Alright. But let's talk about them. So, Microsoft and NVIDIA partnered up and are pushing the new class of local AI PCs. So that includes the RTX Spark laptop. So that's the, you know, the RTX, series by NVIDIA that was announced, around copy, Computex. And then the new, service RTX Spark Dev Box. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:20:34]:
So the way that they're, you know, angling that is essentially saying it's a data center in a little in a little box. Right? Or at least what you the the the power that you would have to have a data center for, you know, maybe five, ten years ago. Now you can get it in a little, little box that you can put on top of your desktop. And but they're built for real real local inference. Right? So for those whether individual developers or, you know, businesses that are trying to bring things on prem certain tasks, right, this is what it's for. This isn't like, for the most part, you're like, oh, I need a new laptop for, you know, web browsing. No. Right? These are the type of things, like, for me as an example, I got a fairly expensive MacBook Pro because I'm running, I'm running models on it constantly.
Jordan Wilson [00:21:17]:
So, same thing. I got a Mac Studio. So these are kind of the equivalents, right, of those higher end, you know, like MacBook Pros and the higher end Mac Studios that have been selling a ton, recently because of these ability to run local models. So this partnership between Microsoft and NVIDIA, pretty big, and the fact, Sadia said it multiple times in his keynote that essentially a 100% of the PC industry got on board. I think that's good because that sets a, essentially, it sets the bar consistent. Right? So you know if you're gonna go spend a couple couple dollars because these aren't cheap yet. Right? We don't have complete prasit pricing, but, presumably, they're gonna be multiple thousands of dollars for the laptops. Guessing the dev box is gonna be way more than that.
Jordan Wilson [00:22:05]:
Right? So it's not like a random consumer hardware you're gonna get going off to college. But if you are a serious, AI developer, if you're someone that likes to tinker around like me, build projects, and you are a PC person, this is the one to keep the eye on. So, the RTX laptops and the Surface RTX Spark dev box, I think they matter less as individual products and more of just the signal, like I said. Right? Local AI is becoming a part, a key part of the Microsoft, AI stack. Right? So it's not just that they're, you know, building out their, you know, their cloud models. Right? The MAI models. They're getting super serious about AI hardware to compete with, Apple. But at the same time, they also developed, some small local models, the ION models.
Jordan Wilson [00:22:55]:
Right? So they're also now offloading, you know, some simple local, some simple AI tasks, locally. And that part's important, right, because I think that's the future of where all of this is headed. Right? Doing transcription live on device. Right? So many of these things being able to run on your local machine is a big step forward in terms of where the future of work is going. AI moves too fast to follow, but you're expected to keep up. Otherwise, your career or company might lag behind while AI native competitors leap ahead. But you don't have ten hours a day to understand it all. That's what I do for you.
Jordan Wilson [00:23:39]:
But after 700 plus episodes of Everyday AI, the most common questions I get is, where do I start? That's why we created the Start Here series, an ongoing podcast series of more than a dozen episodes you can listen to in order. It covers the AI basics for beginners and sharpens the skills of AI champions pushing their companies forward. In the ongoing series, we explain complex trends in simple language that you can turn into action. There's three ways to jump in. Number one, go scroll back to the first one in episode six ninety one. Number two, tap the link in your show notes at any time for the start here series, or you can just go to starthereseries.com, which also gives you free access to our inner circle community where you can connect with other business leaders doing the same. The Start Here series will slow down the pace of AI so you can get ahead. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:24:36]:
And then last but not least, and this one was a different one. And I'd say, at least for me, this is maybe the one I was most impressed by just because we haven't really seen anything like this yet. Is it a gamble? Yes. But project Solera, if it works, this this could be one of the bridges. Right? I I like, I talk a lot about, embodied AI. Right? And and what does that mean? Right now, we're still in consumer enterprise AI. Right? Right now, AI is happening in front of the computer and in the cloud. This is not truly embodied AI, but I think this is a bridge to embodied AI.
Jordan Wilson [00:25:18]:
So Project Solera, it's essentially a device based. Right? But it's a chip to cloud platform for agent first devices. So kind of the idea is that, you know, future devices, may not be organized around apps. And instead, they're going to be, presumably, organized around agents. So the Solera, is essentially a collection of hardware partnered with Qualcomm, that essentially allows your work to be handed off, right, from, you know, agent to agent. You know, they have this cool, like, little badge one, that they demoed, they demoed live. Right? So it has, like, a camera. There's a microphone.
Jordan Wilson [00:26:04]:
You know, you can walk up. There's a a version that sits on your desk. So if you walk up, it kind of has the sensors, and it will unlock for you. So there's some security things in there as well. So I think that there's a lot of potential implications. This is one of those things. It's either it's either gonna hit or miss. Right? This is not just gonna be one of those things that's just like, it's it's warmly received and just kind of exist there.
Jordan Wilson [00:26:27]:
I think it's either gonna be a complete, you you know, flop or it's going to be something pretty popular that I think could bridge the gap. Because there is a gap right now, right, between the future of AI, which is embodied AI. Right? So that's your, you know, robotics, your last mile deliveries, you know, like your your Waymos of the world. Right? But also, all of these agents, well, they need a way to communicate as well. So this could be essentially a a transistor, a relay device, that helps kinda bridge, you know, our current AI, whether that's on our local machines. In this case, you know, you're probably gonna have a Solera account that's probably gonna use your Microsoft credentials. Right? But that's the way I see this. It's just kind of a potential baton, until the technology gets better, which is why it may flop.
Jordan Wilson [00:27:18]:
But it looks cool, and it could absolutely be a hit. So a little bit more, but like I said, it's really they showed off kind of the two concepts for the most part. They showed a badge and then a desk device. So it's not a project a product launch yet. It's an early platform and just kind of design direction more or less. But Microsoft said that pilots are planned, with companies including AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Health, Levi's, Target, and others. But, you know, kind of what they were pushing is that the business relevance is just frontline work. Right? So agents may need to eventually live in badges or dust devices or retail devices, health care tools, field service devices, hospitality workflows.
Jordan Wilson [00:28:04]:
Right? Industrial environments. Right? That's the other big one I think is, you know, just industrial warehousing, logistics, transportation. Right? In those instances where we are going to and we're already starting to see, you know, humanoids and just more autonomous operations happening, you know, I think that whatever, you know, expert driven loops, they're going to probably need a device and an agent to go around with them to help communicate, and maybe it doesn't make as much sense to be carrying around a computer. So could this just be a phone? Right? That's I think that's what you always have to ask yourself. Right? Could this cool badge thing just be a phone? It's like, could that just be an app? Maybe. You know, I I I think that they were kind of saying it's just like how you would normally wear a badge in certain instances. Right? Like, if you work in a huge office, you know, for medical, you know, medical workers. So maybe it's just more to replace an actual badge.
Jordan Wilson [00:29:01]:
But for me, I'm like, yeah. I don't know if that's just gonna be something that's, like, an unnecessary piece of technology, or if it's well, that actually makes sense. So, I mean, there's a lot of upside because the AI could help in places where laptops and chat windows are awkward and you maybe need agent to agent communication, but there's obviously a big concern there. Right? Privacy concerns. You know, badge with camera, microphone, transcription, identity, and agent access, right, can quickly move from being a productivity tool to being a surveillance device. So there's obviously some concerns, but I I personally see the optimistic side. You know, maybe that's because, you know, Microsoft was really pushing the health care angle to it, which I think is, an obvious one. Right? I I I know, especially here in The US, health care workers are overloaded.
Jordan Wilson [00:29:50]:
They're working with antiquated legacy systems. So maybe this is something since it comes from Microsoft, and it has that kind of enterprise backing. Maybe this is something that could really, even if it just flops in every other industry, but it works in something like health care. I think that's a net positive for humanity. So, personally, I'm like, this sounds cool. There's obviously some security concerns, not just, the, surveillance piece, but also just having more people having agentic access. Right? Like, if these are truly shipped to agent devices, handing them out to, you know, I don't know, couple thousand hospital workers. There's also, you know, the potential for agent drift or agent chaos, but I'll wait.
Jordan Wilson [00:30:35]:
So bottom line on that, I mean, Solera is just Microsoft trying to kind of define the enterprise hardware layer for agents because no one's playing there yet. And I think the opportunity, it for the most part, you know, frontline productivity. But the risk is the worker, surveillance, but just with better branding. Alright. So those are the four big announcements. Again, just to recap, number one, we have the super app is here with autopilots, and the first autopilot is Scout. It is the autonomous worker. Number two is Microsoft's new MAI models, specifically their large language model, but medium language model, technically, with MAI thinking one and MAI code flash code one flash.
Jordan Wilson [00:31:19]:
Then we had the partnership with NVIDIA, the RTX Spark laptops, and the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, bringing some serious AI inference to your desk. And then last but not least, Project Solera, the agent first devices beyond the devices that we currently use. Alright. So that's a wrap on those, but let me get back and answer some of those questions as we wrap up. So I talked about that story in September where, you know, Microsoft's internal code red and, you know, feeling that they weren't, you know, or, you you know, that, Satya Nadella felt haunted by potentially not surviving the AI area era. So I'm not saying that the Microsoft build conference, you know, erased that, but I think we're well past that. And it's not just because of some of their recent moves. Right? Things like adopting OpenClaw.
Jordan Wilson [00:32:11]:
Right? That's kind of the, underlying infrastructure that runs scouts, but there is also, official support for OpenClaw. Right? So, the combination, you you know, coming out with this, ion small language model, You know? And I'm assuming in the future as the technology gets cheaper, Microsoft is gonna move more and more processes on device. So I think Microsoft, because it is competing across the full stack. Even if when you think of Microsoft, you're not like, you you know, googly eyed over Microsoft Copilot and loving it. I think by Microsoft being the only player right now, think of this. Apple has absolutely trash AI. They don't have any AI. Right? On the phone, on the computer, We'll see, next week at their WWDC conference.
Jordan Wilson [00:32:59]:
You know, maybe that changes. I wouldn't count on it. Right? But Microsoft is the only one that has the hardware layer, the software layer, the inference, the cloud. Right? I think Microsoft can win by just not losing, and that's fine. Right? And I think it's fine if a lot of people in the enterprise and if if you're a Microsoft three sixty five Copilot organization, maybe you use Copilot for 10% of your tasks, and maybe you use ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini for the other 90%. And that's fine. And that doesn't mean that Copilot is losing or Microsoft is losing the AI race. They're just running way more races than anyone else.
Jordan Wilson [00:33:41]:
Right? Obviously, them and Google are running the most races. You know, then, Apple is I I don't know. Apple is lost out back, hiring other people to run the race for them. And then OpenAI and Anthropic and others are just, you know, doing really well, but not really in hardly any races comparatively. So I think that they'll just always be a medalist, and they may not necessarily win anything or win, you know, best model, best best hardware. Right? They may not win anything, but I think as long as you can compete or medal in every single event, that's okay as an organization. So if anything, I walked away from Build. Again, not being overwhelmed, but saying, okay.
Jordan Wilson [00:34:23]:
Yeah. Microsoft is absolutely serious about AI. And, you know, at least going back to that September story, you know, I don't think Satya Nadella or anyone else at Microsoft needs to be haunted, about not surviving the AI era. You just can't look at the AI era as just being a large language model, as just Copilot. Because if I'm being honest, even if the the the the the super app that comes out is a hit, right, even if these autopilots are great, I still think that they're gonna be behind. I still think they're gonna be behind, specifically OpenAI and Entropic and maybe Google as well. We'll see. Google has some work to do.
Jordan Wilson [00:34:59]:
Same thing, bringing more their, products in a unified way. You you know, the harnessing needs to be improved, but I think they can win just by not losing. The other thing to keep in mind, at least when you do think about the model race, what's Microsoft have to lose? Right? I have a little screen up here for our live stream audience. They have a $5,000,000,000 investment in Anthropic. So we don't know what percentage of ownership that is, but Anthropic, you know, now right now with a market cap of almost $1,000,000,000,000. Right? Same thing, OpenAI. Microsoft has a reported 27% as converted, as converted after the, you know, nonprofit conversion to a public benefits corporation. Microsoft is the technically, the largest single entity shareholder of OpenAI.
Jordan Wilson [00:35:51]:
Right? So, presumably, that's gonna be worth, hundreds of billions of dollars. Right? Because their market cap, depending on what you're looking at, is between $859,100,000,000,000 dollars right now, OpenAI's. So and then they also have an investment in Mistral. Right? So not even if you you're saying, oh, you know, the cloud, this, the right? Just on the model side, if Microsoft is losing OpenAI, does it matter? If Microsoft is losing to Anthropic, does it matter? Because every time Anthropic and OpenAI makes money, right, if you choose one of those other models, if you're a Copilot, you know, user or Microsoft, user, and you're like, oh, I'm not gonna gonna use their models. I'm gonna use OpenAI. Well, they make money either way. But when it comes to the bigger picture, you do have to acknowledge the fact that Microsoft is falling behind. Even though I don't I I don't think that they're gonna fall out of the race, the some of the other competitors are just getting faster.
Jordan Wilson [00:36:49]:
Right? And I think I don't think Microsoft is gonna drop out of the top five companies when it comes to market cap, but they're actually in danger of doing so. Right? So they recently, got leapfrogged by both, Google and Apple. So they're usually, like, a top three, but, you know, now they're number four in terms of market cap behind NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Google, and Microsoft respectively. Will they get passed by Amazon? I don't know, but it's a possibility or Broadcom or when, SpaceX IPO's. Right? There's a chance that SpaceX within a year, could be, you know, in Microsoft territory. There's a chance that Anthropic or OpenAI could as well. So even though Microsoft, I don't think, is going to lose, they just may not hold on to that, you know, number two, number three, biggest company in the world by market cap. But like I said, that doesn't mean that they're losing.
Jordan Wilson [00:37:46]:
So here's my big takeaway. Microsoft doesn't need to win. They just can't be in last place, and they're not. Right? The MAI models are impressive, but I don't think they're ever gonna catch up. Right? We'll see when the super app comes along. Maybe there's gonna be a certain point in this probably not for, like, at least eighteen months. Maybe there's a certain point when the model itself is not gonna be as important. I think right now if you're a power user, the models themselves are not as important as the harnessing.
Jordan Wilson [00:38:16]:
For everyone else, I think the models are still important for your nontechnical, your everyday user, but I think there's gonna be a certain threshold where the models at that point are gonna be so good even if the MAI models are six to nine months behind. I think at that point, it still is probably gonna be good enough for 90 of your casual users. Right? They have the compute. They have everything. So now that they have the team off and running, I wouldn't be surprised if that six to nine month gap, you know, starts to just be three to four months. Right? And at that case, then you do have to start looking at Copilot a little bit differently in the Microsoft MAI models. So I already said the small language models and the combination of the small language model Ion, in the new NVIDIA partnerships. That's a big signal about what's to come in Microsoft's overall direction.
Jordan Wilson [00:39:11]:
So if if you're an organization that is still looking, which is smart. Right? If you're still worried about moving some of your workflows over to the AI native, you're not gonna have that excuse anymore because there's a good chance, maybe not in this generation, but probably in the next generation of these, you know, RTX and NVIDIA partnerships, you're gonna be able to run probably with proactive agents, everything locally on edge. Right? So at that point, you're no longer gonna be able to say, oh, it's sensitive sensitive data. Well, the sensitive data is not leaving. Right? Turn the Internet off. Right? Disconnect every service, and it'll still run. Alright? So that's what I think we have to look at from Microsoft. It's a lot of moving pieces.
Jordan Wilson [00:39:59]:
I think sometimes people over index Microsoft success as a company or Microsoft's, spot in the AI race. They over index just on Copilot. And even with the new models, even with the Copilot Super App, I don't think Microsoft is gonna be number one or number two. And that's okay. And I think when you start to look at Microsoft as a company, you have to understand they're running more races than anyone else. Right? Like, if this is the Olympics, right, yeah, they don't have, you know, anyone grabbing the gold medals, but my gosh, they're competing in every single race. So they may be still one of the top, you know, top dogs just by having the most opportunities to bark. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:40:38]:
I hope this was helpful. Recapping the big four things sold out to me at Microsoft Build. So thank you for tuning in. If you haven't already, please go to youreverydayai.com. Sign up for the free daily newsletter. We'll see you back tomorrow and everyday for more everyday AI. Thanks, y'all.