It was all about AI agents at Microsoft's Build developer conference, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joining to talk about the future of AI coding.

Explore how Microsoft Build 2025 is shaping the future with AI-powered tools, intelligent agents, and dynamic digital ecosystems.

Microsoft’s annual Build conference didn’t go smoothly, thanks to disruptions by protests of the company’s ties to Israel. After one, a flustered Microsoft employee accidentally displayed confidential messages about Walmart’s AI expansion.

Internal memos Jay Parikh has sent to employees since taking on a new AI unit reveal its early ambitions and accomplishments.

Microsoft's focus on AI agents for enterprises may be easier to deliver than Google's consumer focus on a universal AI assistant because Microsoft only has to get the tech right. Google has to change its whole business model too.

This is another example of Microsoft's "agentic" approach to AI, as Discovery is intended to let researchers create virtual teams of AI agents that can be instructed with specific data and guidelines to function as, for example, a "molecular properties simulation specialist" that can then assist with R&D and learn over time.

The announcement was made at Microsoft’s Build developer conference on Monday, and was notable given Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI. Musk founded xAI, the startup behind Grok, but he has also been locked in a feud with OpenAI since stepping down from its board in the late 2010s, citing disagreements over its leadership direction.

Microsoft integrates the Model Context Protocol into Windows 11, paving the way for secure, AI-driven agents to interact with apps and system tools.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the artificial intelligence platform shift is “getting into the middle innings” and touted his company’s systems-based strategy of meet

Jay Parikh, Microsoft executive vice president and head of the company’s CoreAI engineering division, speaks at Build 2025 in Seattle, with the Anthropic