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hello and welcome
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to the vergecast, the flagship podcast of the Windows subsystem for Linux. I'm your friend David Pearce, and on today's show we're going to talk about Microsoft Build. Build is Microsoft's big annual developer conference where it launches a bunch of new stuff, but also tries to just explain itself to the world and what it cares most about and what it hopes that all of its customers care about for the year to come. Big surprise. The answer this year was AI in every single imaginable way. We're going to get into all of that in just a minute, but first, here's everything else happening on the Verge today. This is 90 seconds on the Verge for Thursday, June 4, 2026. Instagram's new Instagram plus subscription is rolling out and the idea is essentially for $4 a month, you can get custom app icons, you can get a custom font in your bio, lots of little aesthetic things like that. But the big stuff is you can now keep your story up for 48 hours instead of 24. You can give your story more priority in other people's feeds so that people see it and you get to watch other people's stories without them knowing. I think a lot of people are gonna pay four bucks a month for just that one feature alone. But the big idea here is Meta increasingly wants you to pay to get your content. Seen even by the people who have said that they wanna see it feels kind of bleak, if I'm honest with you. Tsmc, the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, said it's struggling to keep up with AI demand. Its CEO, CC Wei, said at a shareholder meeting that customer demand is so high and we can only support so much, he said. We are doing Our best to ensure TSMC does not become a bottleneck in a time where RAM is getting more expensive than ever, chips are harder than ever to find, and it is more expensive than it has ever been to buy gadgets. This feels like bad news, especially because the CEO CC Way, also said he'd like to raise prices and that it's going to be a long time to be fully up to speed on product in the US Not a great sign for the price of electronics. In better news, Cash App made a magic wand for paying for stuff. It's called the Cash App Wand and it's an NFC enabled star topped wand that you can use to make on the go payments just by tapping. There's a big DIY trend here of people making things that are more fun to tap and pay with than a credit card or like your watch or your phone. I think it's incredibly charming. I love the Cash App is doing this and it's $25 and apparently there are more of these app tags to come. I'm excited about it. You can read more about all of this at the verge. Com. That is 90 seconds on the verge for June 4th. All right, let's get into Build and Microsoft's big plans for Windows AI and the future of pretty much absolutely everything. Joining me, Tom Warren, who was at Build all week from San Francisco. You're at Build. You've been, you've been doing the Build thing all week. Tell me about the vibes. I remember last year's Build. Weird vibes. Yeah, everybody's very angry, protests interrupting things. This one seems like it's been a little more sane in a certain way, a little, little more straightforward from Microsoft's perspective.
D
Yeah. So this year, the whole point of Build this year is that it was a smaller sort of intimate venue in San Francisco. So they, they used to have Build at San Francisco like comment, but it was many, many years ago now. There was a few protesters outside early yesterday morning. There's none today, but they didn't get inside this time. So there wasn't the sort of chaos that we had last year. Yeah, the keynote is interrupted and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, the vibes are definitely, definitely feels smaller and definitely more about getting actual developers in this time.
B
I get the definite sense Microsoft is trying to use this year's Build to sort of stake its claim in the AI universe. There's a lot of stuff going on and I want to get into some of it. But I'm curious what your sort of big picture takeaway is in Terms of like, what does Microsoft want to be in a world filled with AI?
D
I obviously spoke to Mustafa Suleiman yesterday and he kind of took the gloves off essentially, which I think I get the sense that he's been wanting to do that for a little while, but just basically said we want to be one of the top four AI model creating frontier models in the world. I think we haven't heard them say that exactly before because they've had that really close OpenAI partnership. So I think that was a big part of build this year. It was the sort of coming out party for Microsoft AI and the models and stuff, they had like seven models and so that was, that was a big chunk. But then on the flip side, I think the other thing is there was a big presence of Windows again, which I kind of think they had to have, but also in the sense of positioning Windows to developers has been able to have this local AI compute so they don't have to worry about the tokens, which is the kind of era that we're getting into now. It's like it's the cost of AI now, right, and all the token usage and that's really bubbling up in the news cycle at the moment.
B
Let's start with the AI stuff because I think this question of can Microsoft be the fourth big player in this space, right. Obviously it's Google, DeepMind, Anthropic and OpenAI are like, it's those three big gap everybody else. Microsoft sort of in an awkward way was tied to OpenAI and I think they've, yeah, they've broken up in, in sort of, you know, they, they claim it's on good terms but it actually increasingly seems like these two companies really hate each other and are desperate to get away from each other. And is this, did this feel to you like Microsoft sort of laying out its own full plan on how to do this? Because you know, they put out an operating system for AI agents, they shipped a bunch of like developer tools for Terminal. It really did feel like Microsoft being like, well, all this other stuff has been happening. We did all these partnerships with OpenAI but we now have a whole plan of Microsoft's to take on all of these companies all at the same time. Do you feel like Microsoft successfully made that case?
D
Yeah, I think so to some extent. I think the Microsoft AI stuff, they obviously had seven models and again they were kind of like the smaller models but then they had the reasoning one which I think that's definitely a step forward from what they've been doing before because Typically it's been very focused on specific tasks, whether it be like images or transcription, all that sort of stuff. But this reasoning and the thinking model is a lot about math and code. Right. Which is where they kind of been falling behind. So like Claude Code and Cursor and all the rest of those coding tools. So I think they've definitely put a stake there. They want to go aggressively after coding
B
and I think Microsoft was early to. Right.
D
They were early to. Right.
B
GitHub copilot stuff was way ahead of a lot of this stuff. And then Microsoft got kind of left behind by the stake of the art here.
D
Yeah, exactly. So I think they're trying to reverse that trend. They've successfully done that. I think the first step is just the question of where do they go next? And obviously Mustafa said that they want to be the top four. How they go about that is going to be very interesting. He actually said also to me that they're going to lean on OpenAI for the next few years. Right. Because obviously they've got access to their models for quite some years so they can lean on them for certain stuff whilst they basically compete. Right. And then build their own. And so that's kind of interesting perspective, which is. It's unusual to hear that from an executive, to be honest, but it's kind of what we thought all along anyway, really, isn't it? But yeah, I think they've definitely started to shift their sort of message around AI now. Funny thing, Alcohol Keynote, I think Copilot was only mentioned five times without it being GitHub Copilot. Yeah. That's the one thing out of the keynote is that Copilot was barely mentioned. They announced the surface laptops. They're copilot plus PCs. It didn't even say copilot plus PCs. Like they're very much trying to clean up that. Trying to shove Copilot everywhere.
B
So, okay, you just made a thing make sense for me that I was actually going to ask you about, which is Scout. This is one of Microsoft's biggest announcements was this thing Scout that is this sort of agentic, like Spark, Open Claw ish model. It seems like if you're Microsoft, this is a huge place to try and do some of your own stuff. Right. And we've talked a lot about the advantages that Google has in AI where it makes a lot of apps that people use. It has a lot of data about people. Microsoft has exactly the same thing going on for like every company, everywhere. So the idea of being able to do an AI agent That sort of knows you and your business makes tons of sense. And my immediate response is isn't this exactly Copilot? Why on earth is this not just Copilot? But maybe. Maybe you just answered that question well.
D
So the real interesting insight into this is that Copilot is run out of a different organization to where Microsoft Scout came from. What they also did is they announced a Copilot, sort of super app or Autopilot is what they called, and then it kind of shoved Microsoft Scout inside of there. But that thing does not exist. It's just a mock up. Source is telling me it literally doesn't exist. They've just created this image essentially. So there's obviously some internal politics going on here because the Scout stuff is on the other side of the house. But it is essentially supposed to be your sort of personal system. Right? Like Open Claw is literally Open Claw, but for the enterprise.
B
Do you think Copilot is like a lightly toxic brain at this point? I mean, you've covered a lot, the sort of relentless encroaching of Copilot into everything. And Microsoft sort of way overplayed its hand and has spent some time winding that back, getting Copilot out of things. Is it possible that it's just, it's so overextended Copilot that it now has a branding problem that it's going to kind of slowly try to walk away from?
D
Yeah, I think that's definitely what's happening. There's no doubt of that. I wouldn't say it's like necessarily toxic, but I think it's just they didn't really have focus with it. They just started to use Copilot everywhere. The first was obviously GitHub copilot and then Microsoft kind of like borrowed that, stole it, whatever you want to call it. It just ended with Copilot buttons in paint and in Notepad and just all this craziness. So I think they're definitely walking back where Copilot shows up and to make it more like how that super app is. So they're going to sort of get all those things that they've done and put them all into this single app. But yeah, they definitely have a branding problem with it.
B
So the other thing I'm curious about is Project Solara, which I think to me is like the sort of consumer products person. This is the thing I found most interesting from the whole thing is they built a new operating system for agents essentially. Right. And this is the big open question right now is if you believe that AI agents are going to be foundational to how we use computers going forward. What are our computers supposed to look like? And this is obviously, this is part of the Nvidia RTX Spark question. And if you're Microsoft, it's very important that you get this right because if you get it wrong, Windows goes away. Right. Like this becomes sort of existential in a way. What can you explain sort of what Solara is and what you thought of these demos? I'm curious what they struck.
D
Yeah, so it's built on like the Android open source project. So they've basically fought that and then it's essentially going to be a platform for agents across devices. So we've seen Microsoft, the only thing we've seen Microsoft do this sort of platform play multiple times in the past. A lot of the time it's always been Windows. But you've seen like Microsoft Band, HoloLens, Windows Phone. Obviously they've always tried to position themselves as a platform for future hardware. Right. And it hasn't gone well. So I'm very skeptical of it, but I'm also intrigued by it. But I think the most curious thing about it is that they're positioning it as a platform that run across devices. Like they showed a badge concept, it's like a security card where you could touch a button, it would transcribe and all that. Sort of use a camera and then you've got this like Amazon Echo show, sort of like device that just scans your face, logs you in and you've got your agent. But I think they're not going to make those devices themselves. They're sort of trying to position this as we are going to build the platform secure, etc. For enterprise use and all that sort of stuff. But it just depends, are people going to, you know, use that platform on their devices? That's the big question.
B
Yeah. I think that there are so many sort of ongoing questions about like, what, what is Microsoft trying to be in this space again?
D
Right.
B
Like, is it happy if all of it runs on Azure but not on Windows? I don't know. I just. But I will say I thought the badge concept ruled, like is cool. Again, this idea of if you're, if you're Microsoft and you're trying to think, okay, how do we get AI agentic wearables into people's lives in a way that is Microsoft y doing it as an employee badge. Genius. Like perfect.
D
Correct.
B
It's a thing tons of people are already wearing. It's a thing they have on all the time. And if you can give it some of this sort of input ability. Like there was a demo where it's a person standing over some kind of piece of paper pointing the camera at it that's on it on their badge and it's inputting. That way you can use it as a voice recorder. It can display information like again, thousands of caveats. This is just a, it's a sim. This is essentially like a science fiction concept video. But that to me was one of the moments where I was like this is the most complete thought from Microsoft about how a Microsoft LED AI thing might work that I've seen yet. And there was just something about that that I found very compelling from Microsoft in particular that was like, oh, maybe this company gets what they're going for now.
D
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think the badge concept was, was super interesting. I think it's just where does it go from there? Like they showed some other sort of vague devices didn't they obviously weren't focusing on. But I think it's like they tried this with Cortana, do you remember with the. They had like thermostats, speakers and obviously that was before we called that, you know, that was machine learning back then. Right now it's AI. But yeah, that didn't really go anywhere and they kind of abandoned that. So I'm just like, that's why I'm so skeptical because I've seen them do try and do this so many times in the past. But I think they have the right vision. But I worry that someone else will just do.
B
Didn't seem to me that this build was ironically for a developer conference, more developer focused than normal. And I think to some extent this is what you were talking about at the beginning. Like ordinarily they have lots of salespeople there and it's about sort of lots of people in lots of places. This felt very much like Microsoft re centering itself on developers. They spent a lot of time talking about Linux and the Terminal and developer tools. Am I, am I overthinking what happens at a developer conference here? Or does this feel like Microsoft actually refocusing its efforts on people who are this kind of developer that, that everybody is after in an AI world?
D
No, I think so. They've been trying to win back sort of developers trust and confidence in Windows particular for quite some time now. And obviously a lot of developers just use macOS or they might be on Linux as well. So they've been trying to get those people to sort of take Windows seriously for development. They did the Windows subsystem for Linux many years ago and they've kind of built on top of that build. And it's all like a lot of the Windows announcements this year were very, very developer focused. I mean, it pretty much wasn't anything outside dev stuff, which I think is good because in some years over the past sort of decade, they've, they've gone very consumer heavy at build, but they've done like the Terminal work as well in the past, I think. I think this year it felt like that kind of build because I remember when they unveiled Terminal, like people were going nuts in the audience. Like it was genuine. It wasn't like Microsoft PR people screaming in the corner.
B
You know, in a funny way, the world is coming around to Microsoft on that front, right? Like what we've seen is this, this giant push towards, you know, this is going to change the consumer landscape of everything. And then all of these AI companies kind of led by anthropic. But OpenAI has caught up really fast and Google is now on this too. They've all realized that fundamentally this is business software and they're, they're now trying to build it out as business software. And it feels like this is the thing that Microsoft in theory is very good at and is actually perfectly suited to capture is this idea of how do we bake AI into your business processes? Like no company is better set up to do that at scale than Microsoft. And I just got this sense of like, you and I have talked many times about Microsoft's inability to help itself from trying to be a consumer company. It feels like if ever Microsoft is just going to confidently get back to being a business company, this is the time like it. And it has a real shot at catching up very quickly if it can pull it off.
D
Yeah, that's the thing. It's almost like an existential crisis, isn't it, for Microsoft? Because if they don't pull this off, they have, you know, Office and Window and all of this enterprise platform stuff like M365, et cetera. But that could all just disappear, right? It's not a guaranteed business anymore in this era where a startup can just create something that just takes all of that away. But that's what it's all about. They need to capture that audience that they already have on the enterprise and get them using their own tools before they run off to use someone else's. And there's been obviously friction internally with the OpenAI stuff where they've been competing. They've been on this weird path where they're sort of trying to get the same sort of customers and I think it's yeah, if there's ever a time where they need to make this work, it's right now for sure.
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I keep seeing celebrities posts me in the 90s versus now while the person staring at me in the mirror is definitely not the same person that could pull off boot cut jeans. Time creeps up on us so slowly you don't see it until suddenly you do. Same thing goes for your bills. A dollar here, an uptick there. It's a slow burn until one day you realize the price you're paying now is way higher than when you signed up. But AT T Mobile customers had the lowest wireless bills versus Verizon and ATT over the past five years and with T Mobile on their experience plans you get a five year price guarantee so you know exactly what your plan price will be for the next five years. So at least that's one thing that won't change over time. I can't guarantee you'll still look good with frosted tips, but T Mobile can give you a clear guarantee on your wireless plan.
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Lower bills based on Harris X billing snapshots from Q3.21 to Q4 25 compared to average AT&T and Verizon bills. Comparison excludes discounts, credits and optional charges. Price guarantee on talk, text and data exclusions like taxes and fees apply. CT mobile.com when you need to build
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Sponsored Jobs no one goes to Hank's for spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet, so Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs and help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now, Hank says a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more@m365copilot.com work this Father's Day do
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I do want to talk about the sort of one consumer thing going at Microsoft right now, which is Xbox. I've been meaning to have you on for a while to talk about the current state of Xbox because there's a lot changing really fast. We're about three months or so into the Asha Sharma run at the top of Xbox after this giant shakeup. Xbox is now Xbox all caps, which I hate with every fiber of my being.
D
I was going to say, do I have to say Xbox or just shout it?
B
Yeah, it's the Xbox team now. Give me the readout so far. What are the vibes like? How are we feeling about the Asha Sharma era at Xbox so far?
D
Yeah, I think at the moment it's still early days. Right. But she's doing all the right things. Right, as you would want to do to focus on the fans. Right. She's trying to win back that sort of set of people initially. So I think she's setting up this feedback framework so the fans can be like, oh, we want this, which is predominantly. We want exclusives back. That that's the main message from fans, which is not, not too surprising, I guess. And also dropping the Microsoft gaming name that they used internally, all that sort of stuff does kind of put it back, the focus on Xbox. And I think it's more important for employees, really. I've heard over the last two years that people have been, you know, pretty, pretty upset with Xbox and working there and stuff, a lot of folks. But I think that is starting to slowly turn. So the people that were saying a lot to me are now saying, well, there's a little bit of hope, you know, like Asha gets it. She's listening to the right people and she has obviously Satya, Nadella and Amy Hood, the CFO have obviously given her a bit of, a bit of Runway, like a bit of leeway to, to sort of not have that, those strict margins which I think undermine Xbox the last couple of years. So she's got a bit more free rein to perhaps do some stuff.
B
Yeah, give me your sense of what that looks like and kind of what the. What the road is sort of pointing to. She's done a lot of very smart work cleaning up branding. Right. Like getting rid of Microsoft gaming and just calling it Xbox. Extremely good idea. And there, there is definitely a sort of simplification of what Microsoft is doing here. I can't quite figure out if her vision for what gamers do and this, this sort of like everything is an Xbox. We're game pass is the future. Streaming is the future. Consoles don't really matter. Every game should be everywhere. Like Phil Spencer's idea of what it meant to be a gamer was very different than a lot of people have had. Is your sense that Asha Sharma is going to change that in a meaningful way or just kind of focus in that same direction?
D
Yeah, that's the big question is like a lot of the strategy stuff sounds a lot like it was before. Right. Play you know, playing everywhere. So it's not too dissimilar. I think it's just more the, the way they executed that before like they did this is an Xbox and it was like a phone and a laptop is like the average consumer look at that commercial and go huh, that's not an Xbox. And Xbox goes underneath my tv. So. So they still have that, that sort of perception to get over if, if they want to make the cloud stuff work and all that sort of stuff. But I think it's more the execution now there's going to be a bit different on the strategy. I think we're still waiting to hear a little bit more clearer from. From Asher on the strategy. I mean that's one thing that's probably been lacking somewhat and it because it's been more like the obvious things like fixing the branding she's doing at the moment. Right. So but it's like which is good. That's.
B
That's the right way to spend your first 90 days is just doing a lot of things that didn't make sense. That now you making them make sense. That goes a very long way.
D
Yeah, it's been rapid but like yeah it does like you're probably what you about say is what's the long term strategy. Right. Like where does that go?
B
At some point you have to tell me what I'm going to from you. Right?
D
Exactly.
B
Like that's that I don't know that I have tons of clarity on that question.
D
No. And you've got Project Helix, the next gen console that's kind of like looming in the background there. But then Ash is doing a bunch of console work, like doing a lot of console features. So why would you spend engineer time doing all that sort of stuff if you're going to dump that sort of OS at some point and just go to some sort of Windows with Xbox on top? And there's a lot of open questions about the future for sure.
B
Microsoft seems to be clearly turned back toward the Xbox a little bit. Right. I think we spent a long time asking like, is this even worth being an ongoing concern inside of Microsoft as it pivots away to being a different kind of company. It does seem to me that there is all this going on and it is increasingly far away from everything else that Microsoft talks about, which is essentially just AI, AI, AI, AI, AI. Like Microsoft believes itself to be an AI powerhouse with a sort of not middling but not like massively successful gaming company on the side.
D
Yeah.
B
Does it. Do you feel like those things can coexist? Are they going to coexist in Microsoft?
D
It's always been the trouble with exports, like the way it was first, the way it started initially was an incubation project. Right, right. And trying to put Windows in delivery room, essentially. It's always been this weird thing at exports. But I think they've had the realization over the past year or so that this is their last sort of major consumer facing brand. Right. Like Surface is still got a foot in the consumer side, but it's still primarily they're selling those devices to businesses. To be honest. There's that realization that they need to not be so focused on the margins which has kind of caused them to do weird things over the past couple of years and sort of return of Xbox. We'll see. I don't know.
B
Xbox is always back, you know what I mean? Like it's somehow it's always coming back. I don't know where it went.
D
There's this meme the Xbox fans. It's like a graph and it's like this and it's like we're so back and then we're doomed. We're so back. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's Xbox.
B
All right. One more thing before I let you go back to build. There was a lot of talk all week about the Nvidia RTX Spark stuff. And I think the sort of flagship hardware we've seen so far has been from Microsoft. They had the Surface Laptop Ultra. They have this new Spark dev box. What do you make here of Microsoft's hardware ambitions with Nvidia? What's going on here?
D
Yeah, I was quite surprised to see them do both of these devices. I think we kind of assume they do a laptop right when all the rumors of Nvidia's AI chips. So yeah, I played around with the Laptop Ultra and it is pretty much a 16 inch MacBook Pro, you know, like it is a MacBook Pro. And then you know that they've done like the Surface Book in the past with the detachable display. They've done the Laptop Studio where it's kind of lays flat into like a tablet. They've done all these quirky things, but it looks like they're just kind of going back to the laptop formula because that works. But I think the most curious thing about them is that who they're targeting. Right? They're really going for developers and creators with these, which they kind of tried a little bit. Windows 10 Creators Update, they briefly sort of skirted with that. But this seems like a good time to have these sort of devices. I think, I think they struck like almost the perfect time is whether they can be good enough to be able to do everything that developers want to do without having to touch those sort of cloud powered models. But I think that's the most interesting part of these devices to me is exactly how performant are they and exactly how well these local AI models will run.
B
Yeah, I have absolutely no professional need for the Surface Laptop Ultra and yet I still found myself. I've loved the Surface Laptop since all the way back to like the red Alcantara days. I thought that was a great laptop and that Microsoft should have put more into it. So the idea of like an outrageously overpowered high end Surface laptop gets me very excited. I'm sure it's going to cost a million dollars. I have no need for it, but I'm thrilled that it exists.
D
I swear that thing's going to start at $3,000. But I'm the same, I'm like, I don't need it, but I want it.
B
Yeah, agreed. All right, Tom, get home safe. Good to see you. Thanks for coming on, bud.
D
Appreciate it. All right, I'll speak soon.
B
All right, that's it for the show. Thank you to Tom for being here and thank you as always for watching and listening. If you have thoughts, feelings, questions, feedback, strong opinions about Copilot, I want to hear all of it. Email us vergecasthevirge.com or call the Vergecast hotline at 866-verge11. We read it all, we listen to it all. We love hearing from you, as always. A reminder, the best thing you can do to support everything the Verge is up to and get all of our podcasts ad free is subscribe to the Verge theverge.com subscribe you get all of our podcasts with no ads. You get all of our exclusive newsletters. You get all of our coverage of everything. It's a pretty good website. I think you'll like it. The Verge cast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. This show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, Travis Larchuk and Aaron Locasio. We will see you tomorrow. Rock and roll.
In this episode, David Pierce and Tom Warren dissect Microsoft Build 2026, focusing on Microsoft’s ambitious moves to become a top-tier AI player. The show unpacks Microsoft’s rivalry and complex relationship with OpenAI, explores the company’s branding struggles with Copilot, discusses strategic moves like Project Solara and the Scout agent, and delves into renewed focus on developer tools and Windows. The episode rounds off with a look at Xbox’s new direction and Microsoft’s hardware partnership with Nvidia.
Build’s New Atmosphere: Smaller, developer-focused, less chaotic compared to prior years.
Microsoft’s AI Ambition: Public affirmation of intent to be a “top four” AI model developer globally, stepping out from OpenAI’s shadow.
Strategic Independence: Microsoft says it will both rely on OpenAI “for a few more years” while building its own models and platforms.
Focus on Reasoning and Code: Microsoft debuts models targeting math and code, aiming to reclaim lost ground from rivals (Anthropic’s Claude, Cursor, etc.).
Scout and Copilot Confusion: Introduction of “Scout” agent—internally separate from Copilot, but both represent Microsoft’s efforts toward agentic AI for enterprise use.
Brand Overextension: Copilot’s name was put on every product—now Microsoft seems to be quietly pulling back due to identity dilution.
A Platform Gamble: Project Solara is an OS for AI agents, based on Android Open Source Project (AOSP). It underpins Microsoft’s vision for AI agent hardware across devices, from badges to show-style home devices.
Badge Demo: Badge-as-agent is a standout demo—offers input via voice/camera and could make AI wearables practical for enterprise.
“This is the most complete thought from Microsoft about how a Microsoft LED AI thing might work that I’ve seen yet.”
— David Pierce (13:32)
Caveat: Tom remains skeptical, referencing Microsoft’s history of abandoned hardware (Cortana, HoloLens, etc.).
Recapturing Developer Trust: This Build returned to developer-centric announcements, especially about Windows and its Linux integrations.
Business, Not Consumer: Acknowledgement that AI’s present and future is business process automation—and Microsoft is uniquely placed for that.
Existential Stakes: If Microsoft can’t build on its enterprise dominance with AI, “just having Office and Windows isn't a guaranteed business anymore.”
Xbox Shakeup: Under Asha Sharma, Xbox is rebranding, focusing on "winning back fans" (esp. around game exclusives) and listening more to employee and player feedback.
Strategy in Flux: Some legacy of Phil Spencer remains (“play everywhere”), but the execution is new—focus on narrower, less confusing branding.
Open Questions: Long-term vision (cloud? console? “Project Helix”?), and how/if Xbox’s consumer presence fits in an overwhelmingly AI-focused company.
Hardware Ambitions: Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Ultra and Spark Dev Box target high-end developers and creators. Both leverage Nvidia’s latest AI chips.
Performance Focus: The devices are aimed at running local AI models, bypassing cloud dependencies.
Microsoft is betting big on AI, aiming to reclaim technical leadership and define device and developer experiences for the next era. With more public separation from OpenAI, a mixed approach to agentic AI (Scout/Solara), a new identity for Copilot, and a conscious return to business and developer focus, Microsoft appears more clear-eyed than in past years. Still, as shown with Xbox and ambitious hardware, big existential questions remain—about execution, coherence, and whether Microsoft can truly lead in every field it covets.
Useful for listeners: This episode is an incisive look at Microsoft’s AI strategy, struggles, hardware and platform pivots, and how it’s aiming to stay relevant and dominant—from enterprise to Xbox.