#microsoft

Radar · 2026-08-03

Microsoft opens Orchard: a greenhouse for training agents, not another orchestrator

Microsoft Research released Orchard, an open-source framework for scalable agentic model training. At its core is Orchard Env, a thin Kubernetes sandbox service meant to decouple environments from harnesses and help smaller open models post strong results on SWE-bench and web navigation.

Radar · 2026-07-13

Microsoft moves Lean-checked crypto proofs into SymCrypt production code

Microsoft has published a SymCrypt branch with formal specifications and proofs for Rust implementations of SHA-3 and ML-KEM. The important move is not AI writing proofs, but proofs living next to production cryptographic code.

Radar · 2026-06-29

Memora tackles agent memory by separating storage from retrieval

Microsoft Research describes Memora as a memory system for AI agents that currently need to reload or retrieve context repeatedly. The important move is separating what gets stored from how it is later retrieved.

Radar · 2026-07-09

Aurora 1.5 pushes AI weather models toward energy and climate operations

Microsoft Research says Aurora 1.5 adds 22 more variables, hourly resolution and probabilistic ensemble forecasting. The interesting part is not prettier weather maps, but whether AI forecasts can support expensive operational decisions.

Radar · 2026-07-08

Flint gives AI agents a shorter path from data to charts

Microsoft Research is showing Flint, an open-source visualization language that lets AI agents build charts from compact, human-editable specs. The interesting part is not another charting framework, but the layer between a prompt and the rendering library.

Radar · 2026-07-02

Microsoft's Ire found LOTUSLITE where signatures failed

Microsoft showed Project Ire classifying a 253 KB LOTUSLITE DLL variant as malware even though VirusTotal showed only 1 of 72 vendors detecting it on May 28, 2026. The important part is not attribution, but an agent reading behavior instead of matching IOC lists.

Radar · 2026-07-02

Microsoft turns AI explainability into a hypothesis engine for neuroscience

Microsoft Research described generative causal testing, a method that turns brain prediction models into readable hypotheses and checks them with fMRI. The interesting move is not prediction alone, but using AI to return testable theory to scientists.

Radar · 2026-06-30

SkillOpt trains agent skills like text weights

Microsoft is showing SkillOpt, an optimizer that improves an agent skill file without changing model weights. For teams building agents, the important part is the validation gate, not another layer of prompt mysticism.

Radar · 2026-06-24

Talos turns stored genomic data into a recurring shot at diagnosis

Microsoft Research and partners described Talos, an open-source tool for automated genomic reanalysis in rare disease. In a prospective cohort of almost 5,000 patients, it added diagnoses in 5.1 % of cases.

Radar · 2026-05-21

MagenticLite combines small models, orchestration and local file access into one workflow without a frontier model

Microsoft Research describes MagenticLite, MagenticBrain and Fara1.5 as an agentic system optimized for small models that connects browser and local file system in a single workflow. The direction is practical: not one expensive model for everything, but orchestration of specialized components.

Radar · 2026-05-28

Data Formulator 0.7 tries to rebuild enterprise data analytics around AI agents

Microsoft Research released Data Formulator 0.7, an analytics workspace where AI agents assist with exploration, transformation and visualization of enterprise data. The key question is whether the agent handles messy, permissioned data outside the demo.