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Microsoft Research builds a synthetic enterprise data evaluation platform

Microsoft Research built the Industry Evaluation Data Generation Platform to evaluate Microsoft Copilot. The platform generates fully synthetic enterprise environments based on public data such as O*NET, job postings, and SEC filings, avoiding the use of any customer data. These simulated tenants contain realistic organizational structures, meeting and email histories, can cover issues missed by general benchmarks, and have formed Copilot's first standardized evaluation baseline.

Microsoft Research builds a synthetic enterprise data evaluation platform

Microsoft Research built the Industry Evaluation Data Generation Platform to evaluate Microsoft Copilot. The platform generates fully synthetic enterprise environments based on public data such as O*NET, job postings, and SEC filings, avoiding the use of any customer data. These simulated tenants contain realistic organizational structures, meeting and email histories, can cover issues missed by general benchmarks, and have formed Copilot's first standardized evaluation baseline.

View story:Microsoft Research builds a synthetic enterprise data evaluation platform

Microsoft opens Copilot agent harness public preview through Foundry

On October 30, 2026, Microsoft opened the public beta of the GitHub Copilot agent harness through the Foundry Agent Service in Microsoft Foundry. The harness provides built-in sandboxing, reusable skills, MCP integration, and sub-agent support; the same harness already supports Copilot Code, Copilot Studio, GitHub Copilot, CLI, and VS Code. When creating a prompt agent, this harness must be selected and cannot be changed afterward; CPU, memory, and idle duration are controlled by Microsoft, and bring-your-own-model is not supported. The service is free until December 1, 2026, after which it is billed at $0.0994 per vCPU-hour and $0.0118 per GiB-hour, with model inference and some tools billed separately.

Microsoft opens Copilot agent harness public preview through Foundry

On October 30, 2026, Microsoft opened the public beta of the GitHub Copilot agent harness through the Foundry Agent Service in Microsoft Foundry. The harness provides built-in sandboxing, reusable skills, MCP integration, and sub-agent support; the same harness already supports Copilot Code, Copilot Studio, GitHub Copilot, CLI, and VS Code. When creating a prompt agent, this harness must be selected and cannot be changed afterward; CPU, memory, and idle duration are controlled by Microsoft, and bring-your-own-model is not supported. The service is free until December 1, 2026, after which it is billed at $0.0994 per vCPU-hour and $0.0118 per GiB-hour, with model inference and some tools billed separately.

View story:Microsoft opens Copilot agent harness public preview through Foundry

Microsoft ends Copilot support on smart TVs

Microsoft has decided to end support for all Copilot features on TVs. A pop-up notification on LG TVs states that the feature is "scheduled to be discontinued in 2026," with the exact date depending on Microsoft's timeline. LG and Samsung announced at CES 2025 that their new smart TVs would integrate Copilot, allowing users to talk to it, ask about on-screen content, or get movie and TV recommendations. Previously, LG drew user complaints after a webOS update added a non-removable Copilot shortcut, and later allowed it to be deleted.

Microsoft discloses $10 billion in quarterly revenue from OpenAI

Microsoft disclosed in a regulatory filing that it earned $10 billion in revenue from its commercial arrangement with OpenAI in the quarter ended September 30, accounting for nearly 11% of its total quarterly revenue of $92.3 billion. The same disclosure shows that revenue from OpenAI for the full 2026 fiscal year was $24.1 billion, or roughly $40 billion annualized at the latest quarterly pace. As of the end of September, Microsoft's receivables from OpenAI stood at $7.2 billion, up from $6 billion at the end of June; Microsoft's stake fell from about 25% in June to 24% in September. This information currently comes from TechCrunch AI's reporting on the regulatory filing, with no further developments yet.

Microsoft discloses $10 billion in quarterly revenue from OpenAI

Microsoft disclosed in a regulatory filing that it earned $10 billion in revenue from its commercial arrangement with OpenAI in the quarter ended September 30, accounting for nearly 11% of its total quarterly revenue of $92.3 billion. The same disclosure shows that revenue from OpenAI for the full 2026 fiscal year was $24.1 billion, or roughly $40 billion annualized at the latest quarterly pace. As of the end of September, Microsoft's receivables from OpenAI stood at $7.2 billion, up from $6 billion at the end of June; Microsoft's stake fell from about 25% in June to 24% in September. This information currently comes from TechCrunch AI's reporting on the regulatory filing, with no further developments yet.

View story:Microsoft discloses $10 billion in quarterly revenue from OpenAI

Microsoft offers voluntary severance packages to up to 60,000 employees

On October 26, 2026, Microsoft offered voluntary severance packages to employees at level 70 and below across teams in the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom, covering up to approximately 60,000 people, or about 27% of its global workforce; employees must decide by early December, and those who accept will leave the company by the end of the year. The Verge AI reported that this scale far exceeds the retirement plan offered to about 9,000 people earlier this year; as of June 30, Microsoft had approximately 223,000 employees, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous year. On October 29, Microsoft announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, with Azure revenue up 48% year over year; the company said demand for AI infrastructure has exceeded available capacity; a few days before the earnings release, Microsoft offered voluntary departure packages to approximately 60,000 employees.

Microsoft releases preview version of image editing model MAI Image 2.7

On October 27, 2026, Microsoft AI released the image editing model MAI Image 2.7, launching it in preview form. The Microsoft AI Blog said that the model ranks 3rd on Arena Edit and 2nd on the Artificial Analysis image editing leaderboard, making Microsoft AI the 2nd-ranked lab; the company also said that it outperforms 2.6 on all 10 use cases and 7 categories of editing actions evaluated by Artificial Analysis, and leads the next-best model by 24 Elo on scenes and styles. A subsequent IT Home report said that the model ranks 2nd on the AA-Image-Editing v2.1 leaderboard with 1193 Elo, second only to OpenAI's GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max). Users can currently try it on Arena, Artificial Analysis, and the MAI Playground, with text-to-image functionality coming soon; Microsoft has not yet announced a public API, pricing, or an official commercial launch date, and the model weights have not been released.

View story:Microsoft releases preview of image editing model MAI Image 2.7

Microsoft announced Azure revenue grew 48% year-over-year

On October 26, 2026, Microsoft offered voluntary severance packages to employees at level 70 and below across teams in the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom, covering up to approximately 60,000 people, or about 27% of its global workforce; employees must decide by early December, and those who accept will leave the company by the end of the year. The Verge AI reported that this scale far exceeds the retirement plan offered to about 9,000 people earlier this year; as of June 30, Microsoft had approximately 223,000 employees, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous year. On October 29, Microsoft announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, with Azure revenue up 48% year over year; the company said demand for AI infrastructure has exceeded available capacity; a few days before the earnings release, Microsoft offered voluntary departure packages to approximately 60,000 employees.

View story:Microsoft offers voluntary severance packages to up to 60,000 employees

Microsoft ends Copilot support on smart TVs

Microsoft has decided to end support for all Copilot features on TVs. A pop-up notification on LG TVs states that the feature is "scheduled to be discontinued in 2026," with the exact date depending on Microsoft's timeline. LG and Samsung announced at CES 2025 that their new smart TVs would integrate Copilot, allowing users to talk to it, ask about on-screen content, or get movie and TV recommendations. Previously, LG drew user complaints after a webOS update added a non-removable Copilot shortcut, and later allowed it to be deleted.

View story:Microsoft ends Copilot support on smart TVs

Microsoft releases preview of image editing model MAI Image 2.7

On October 27, 2026, Microsoft AI released the image editing model MAI Image 2.7, launching it in preview form. The Microsoft AI Blog said that the model ranks 3rd on Arena Edit and 2nd on the Artificial Analysis image editing leaderboard, making Microsoft AI the 2nd-ranked lab; the company also said that it outperforms 2.6 on all 10 use cases and 7 categories of editing actions evaluated by Artificial Analysis, and leads the next-best model by 24 Elo on scenes and styles. A subsequent IT Home report said that the model ranks 2nd on the AA-Image-Editing v2.1 leaderboard with 1193 Elo, second only to OpenAI's GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max). Users can currently try it on Arena, Artificial Analysis, and the MAI Playground, with text-to-image functionality coming soon; Microsoft has not yet announced a public API, pricing, or an official commercial launch date, and the model weights have not been released.

Microsoft offers voluntary severance to up to 60,000 employees

On October 26, 2026, Microsoft offered voluntary severance packages to employees at level 70 and below across teams in the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom, covering up to approximately 60,000 people, or about 27% of its global workforce; employees must decide by early December, and those who accept will leave the company by the end of the year. The Verge AI reported that this scale far exceeds the retirement plan offered to about 9,000 people earlier this year; as of June 30, Microsoft had approximately 223,000 employees, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous year. On October 29, Microsoft announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, with Azure revenue up 48% year over year; the company said demand for AI infrastructure has exceeded available capacity; a few days before the earnings release, Microsoft offered voluntary departure packages to approximately 60,000 employees.

View story:Microsoft offers voluntary severance packages to up to 60,000 employees