The Verge interviews Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman about the company’s approach to advanced AI, superintelligence, AGI, OpenAI, and automation. His message is that more powerful AI systems are arriving soon, but Microsoft wants them to remain human-controlled and human-serving. The piece is less a product announcement than a window into Microsoft’s strategic framing of AI progress and job disruption.
Microsoft announced several in-house AI models at Build 2026, including its new flagship reasoning model, MAI-Thinking-1. The launch marks a significant expansion of Microsoft's model-development efforts after it introduced its first internal models last year. Previously reliant on OpenAI models, Microsoft is building more independent capabilities as the companies loosen ties through a renegotiated agreement.