2025 saw groundbreaking innovations including AI-powered materials discovery tools, protein structure modeling, and multilingual AI for underserved communities. Dive into our Year in Review for a look at these and other transformative advances. msft.it/6011tUVUJ

From AI-driven material discovery and protein modeling to agentic systems, gaming, and multilingual AI for the global majority, 2025 turned research into real-world impact. Explore the breakthroughs in Microsoft Research’s Year in Review. msft.it/6013tUPR3

Holoportation™ technology, enabling real-time 3D telecommunications, has evolved from the lab to real-world use. After a decade of refinement and real-world deployment, it's been released via open source license to encourage wider use and development: msft.it/6010toiZQ

The Agentic AI Research and Innovation (AARI) initiative brings Microsoft Research and Academic Researchers together to advance safe, robust agentic systems from foundational science to real-world impact through open, global collaboration. msft.it/6045tWLfv

Microsoft Chief Scientific Officer Eric Horvitz on what stood out at NeurIPS 2025, what’s next, and why these moments matter for the future of AI research.

The Microsoft Research Asia StarTrack Scholars Program is a three-month experience designed to foster global collaboration and accelerate frontier research. Applications are due today, December 15. Details on research fields, programs, and application procedures are available at: msft.it/6042tm1oI

ICYMI: Microsoft Chief Product Officer of Responsible AI Sarah Bird talks NeurIPS, the 20th anniversary of WiML, and what's next in RAI.

By decoupling how agents work from how they’re trained, Agent Lightning turns each step an agent takes into data for reinforcement learning. This makes it easy for developers to improve agent performance with almost zero code changes: msft.it/6011tczN7

Promptions helps developers add dynamic, context-aware controls to chat interfaces so users can guide generative AI responses. It lets users shape outputs quickly without writing long instructions: msft.it/6010tiw2r

The latest Microsoft Research Forum episode is now available on-demand. Explore purposeful research and its real-world impact. www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

We’re pleased to share Francesca Parmigiani has been named an Optica Fellow—one of photonics’ most competitive and prestigious distinctions—recognizing her pioneering work in high-speed optical communications and optical signal processing. Congratulations Francesca! msft.it/6014tgRGK

Using AI-generated virtual populations, Microsoft researchers uncovered hidden cellular patterns that could reshape how we understand and treat cancer. msft.it/6012t9guC

Live in 1 hour! Join us at Microsoft Research Forum at 8:00 AM PT to engage with speakers live in chat: www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

What’s next in AI for 2026? Microsoft researchers share what they expect, from adaptive robotics to agent‑native economies. Explore the areas of innovation set to define the next chapter. msft.it/6014tg496

Booth #1703 was the place to be during #NeurIPS 2025! Thank you for stopping by to share ideas and chat about what’s next. Check out the accepted papers from Microsoft researchers to learn more: msft.it/6010tguyu

#MSFTatNeurIPS Spotlight: Senior Principal Research Manager Neel Joshi talks vision models

#MSFTatNeurIPS Spotlight: Principal Research Manager Lijuan Wang on the hottest topics at NeurIPS 2025

#MSFTatNeurIPS Spotlight: Meet Senior PM Lead of Microsoft Research Yash Lara. Learn about what he’s working on and what’s inspiring him at NeurIPS this year.

Microsoft Chief Scientific Officer Eric Horvitz checks out the #MicrosoftatNeurIPS booth. Stay tuned to this channel for a fun Q&A with Eric, live from NeurIPS 2025.

After a few days at NeurIPS, a few themes kept popping up. Here are the top three trends that stood out to a first time attendee this year #MSFTatNeurIPS

NeurIPS 2025, day one. First impressions and a whole lot to take in from our eyes and ears on the expo floor. Stay tuned for more #MSFTatNeurIPS content all week.

As the Women in Machine Learning Workshop (WiML) marks its 20th annual gathering, cofounders, friends, and collaborators Jenn Wortman Vaughan and Hanna Wallach reflect on WiML’s evolution, navigating the field of ML, and their work in responsible AI. msft.it/6018tbavj

Visit booth #1703 during #NeurIPS in San Diego to engage with Microsoft experts, meet our recruiters, and check out our innovations and demos. Explore the schedule here: msft.it/6013tkmdX #MSFTatNeurIPS

In the latest issue of Research Focus: Fara-7B brings efficient agentic computer use to small models; new tools help computing researchers assess societal impact; and more. msft.it/6017tbeFf

Heading to #NeurIPS 2025 in San Diego? Microsoft has more than 150 accepted papers featuring cutting-edge research. Join us at exhibit hall booth #1703 for exciting talks and demos and to connect with Microsoft recruiters. msft.it/6018tkmXo

New research explores two ways to give AI agents stronger privacy safeguards grounded in contextual integrity. One adds lightweight, inference-time checks; the other builds contextual awareness directly into models through reasoning and RL: msft.it/6013tpZWv

Fara-7B is our first agentic small language model for computer use. This experimental model includes robust safety measures to aid responsible deployment. Despite its size, Fara-7B holds its own against larger, more resource-intensive agentic systems: msft.it/6015tpZHF

Coming December 9 at 8:00 AM PT, our last Microsoft Research Forum episode of the year.  Register now: www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

Project Gecko is bridging the AI equity gap by creating cost-effective, culturally relevant AI systems that deliver expertise and insight to the global majority. This Microsoft Research-led initiative is empowering communities with AI-driven solutions that drive better outcomes: msft.it/6011trtP7

Project Gecko brings AI to underserved populations reflecting local language and culture, Workload Intelligence enhances cloud platform efficiency, and more. msft.it/6013tRExc

Ready for #MSIgnite ~ Join us for AI Frontier in Foundry Labs: Experiment Today, Lead Tomorrow on Wed, Nov 19 from 4:00 PM to 4:45 PM PST online and in San Francisco (Moscone West, Level 3, Room 3011). msft.it/6015tO23S

Magentic Marketplace is an open-source simulation environment for studying how AI agents interact and transact in digital markets. Its modular design lets researchers experiment with different market setups, agent behaviors, and system dynamics at scale. msft.it/6014tMvva

Microsoft senior researcher, Advait Sarkar, recently presented at TED AI Vienna, where he spoke about AI’s role in elevating human thought.

AI tools often perform poorly in non-Western languages and lack cultural context that’s crucial for many populations. Project Gecko uses small language models to deliver vital content that extends AI’s benefits to serve the global majority: msft.it/6018t3Rrn

BlueCodeAgent is an end-to-end blue-teaming framework built to boost code security using automated red-teaming processes, data, and safety rules to guide LLMs’ defensive decisions. Dynamic testing reduces false positives in vulnerability detection: msft.it/6014tMvnr

Congratulations to Esha Choukse for receiving the ACM SIGMICRO Early Career Award! This recognition honors her for foundational contributions to hardware memory compression and sustainable and efficient datacenter systems. She is a Principal Researcher in Azure Research – Systems. msft.it/6014tzZsC

Microsoft researchers are driving trends and tackling major challenges in the midst of the ever-changing AI era. msft.it/6015tJvdx

Take your data exploration to the next level with Agentic Mode, now in the newest version of Data Formulator, available on Azure AI Foundry Labs. Update charts, get recommendations, and create reports grounded in your exploration. msft.it/6010tJyvk 1/2

A collaboration between Signify and Microsoft Research shows how PIKE-RAG improves enterprise knowledge systems, delivering a 12% increase in accuracy and faster, more reliable answers: msft.it/6012tydu8

AI agents are transforming digital marketplaces, mediating discovery and transactions between consumers and businesses. The new Magentic Marketplace provides an open-source, extensible simulation environment for studying different agentic market designs: msft.it/6014tyz9q

Code agents help streamline software development workflows, but may also introduce critical security risks. Learn how RedCodeAgent automates and improves “red-teaming” attack simulations to help uncover real-world threats that other methods overlook: msft.it/6013shouB

In this issue of Research Focus: ECHO boosts LM agents’ learning efficiency; Robusta enhances heuristic algorithms with LLMs; LEGOMem improves multi-agent workflows; and PulseParse secures data parsing: msft.it/6016tGwXK

Microsoft researchers received the Best Paper Award at ESEM 2025 for "When Domains Collide: An Activity Theory Exploration of Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration.” Learn more: msft.it/6012tEVKm

The StarTrack Scholars Program at Microsoft Research Asia offers young faculty a 3-month research opportunity to collaborate globally, gain access to world-class resources, and innovate for the future. Learn more and apply now: msft.it/6012t8Sme

Research is serious work, powered by real people. Get to know Director of Microsoft Research AI for Science Chris Bishop and learn what excites him beyond the lab.

SentinelStep enables AI agents to handle monitoring tasks that run for hours or days, like watching for emails or tracking prices. It works by managing when agents should check and their context, avoiding wasted resources and missed updates. msft.it/6018sC85Y

Paraphrasing a protein is like paraphrasing a sentence—the words change, but the meaning holds. Microsoft scientists applied this concept to toxic proteins, revealing a blind spot in DNA screening and leading a cross-sector team to develop a fix. msft.it/6010s4tW8

Identifying and mitigating risk to support AI breakthroughs needs thoughtful, innovative approaches. In “Ideas,” Eric Horvitz and collaborators share the nuances of building a red-teaming protocol for testing and securing DNA biosecurity screening tools. msft.it/6015sF1vt

We’re a proud sponsor of #SOSP2025! From advancing performance debugging, to multilingual AI systems, our teams are pushing the boundaries of systems research. Explore the full list of accepted papers: msft.it/6014sNzS8

How is agentic AI changing research in the modern lab? Join our October 28 webinar to explore real use cases in life sciences and see how AI copilots boost R&D productivity. msft.it/6019sFEZb