Microsoft's first advanced reasoning AI is here

Microsoft launched MAI-Thinking-1, its first advanced reasoning AI model. The model is a medium-sized architecture trained from ground up on clean data without distillation from third-party models. It matches leading models on key software engineering benchmarks. Microsoft introduced the model at Build 2026 as part of its in-house AI development. The company previously relied on OpenAI models before launching its own. The announcement follows a recent renegotiation of its partnership with OpenAI to loosen dependencies.