Microsoft unveils Scout Autopilot Agent, Solara platform, and Majorana 2 chip

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella opened Build 2026 by positioning AI agents as the primary way people will interact with technology. Project Solara, a new chip-to-cloud platform, enables AI-first devices like a wearable badge and desktop companion that work seamlessly across environments. The company also introduced Scout, its first Autopilot agent for the workplace. Built on OpenClaw technology and powered by Microsoft's Work IQ engine, Scout proactively accesses data across Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint. Unlike standard chatbots, it can track projects, summarize meetings, resolve scheduling conflicts, and handle routine admin tasks—all with enterprise-grade security controls.

Alongside the agent ecosystem, Microsoft expanded its in-house AI with MAI-Thinking-1, a 35-billion-parameter reasoning model for complex enterprise and coding tasks. Developers got the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a compact desktop delivering 1 petaflop of AI performance via Nvidia RTX Spark, capable of running local models up to 120 billion parameters. On the quantum front, Majorana 2 offers a 1,000-fold reliability improvement over its predecessor, with a goal of a scalable quantum computer by 2029. Combined with the Microsoft Discovery research platform, the announcements signal Microsoft's bet that AI agents—across devices, workplaces, and science—will define the next computing era.