26-May-2025 :

At Build 2025, Microsoft announced major upgrades to the Windows platform to support the next generation of AI-native development. The OS now offers tools and system-level features designed specifically for hosting autonomous agents, AI workflows, and multimodal inference workloads natively on device.
Key updates include an agent runtime environment, local context windows, system APIs for memory management, and GPU-first optimization layers to run models like Phi-3 and small open-weight models directly on Windows devices. Microsoft also showcased end-to-end workflows powered by ONNX Runtime and Olive tools for quantizing and deploying models with low latency.
In a parallel update, Microsoft introduced a new security initiative: the Model Context Protocol. This protocol defines how models running on a local device receive, store, and process user data, ensuring isolation, provenance tagging, and responsible retention policies.
The Model Context Protocol is designed to safeguard AI agents that run across different applications, helping developers build context-aware assistants without compromising user privacy. Microsoft says this effort is part of a broader goal to establish trust and safety foundations for the agentic computing era.
Together, these announcements highlight Microsoft’s deep commitment to positioning Windows as the leading platform for agent-first operating systems, where models are first-class citizens with structured governance, access control, and real-time adaptability.