Agents are creating a foundational shift in how people get things done, unlocking new levels of productivity and capability on the PC. As agents become part of everyday work, they also raise the bar for compute, security, and control.   That’s why we’re building Windows as the home for hybrid intelligence: a platform where agents can run locally when it makes sense, reach the cloud when they need to, and operate with the security and manageability organizations expect.  Hybrid intelligence expands what’s possible. Windows makes it practical, secure, and ready for broad adoption. And powerful new silicon, devices and models unlock local compute. Together, they define the next chapter of the PC: 

• Windows is the most secure platform for agents. With containment, identity, and manageability built into the platform, Windows helps you control what agents can access, know which agent acted, and govern them at scale. Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), now generally available for Windows and integration with Microsoft Agent 365, are key steps in making that real.   

• Hybrid intelligence brings frontier capability to Windows locally. With intelligent routing, powerful local models, and a performant runtime, Windows lets work run in the right place for each task — local or cloud. We’re bringing frontier-class capabilities to local PCs and enabling services like GitHub to route intelligently on Windows. 

• Copilot gets supercharged with Windows hybrid intelligence. With your permission, Copilot will be able to use local context from your PC, take action on your behalf, and tap into local models, bringing you more capability while helping your tokens go further. 

• A new generation of PCs built for these possibilities. From always-on mini desktop PCs to deskside supercomputers powered by DGX Station for Windows, we are bringing a broad range of devices to unlock hybrid intelligence. Surface Laptop Ultra, powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark™, is available for pre-order today, alongside new devices from ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and MSI. 

• Windows gets more capable across everyday tasks including new ways to take action directly from Windows Search on the taskbar and enhancements in gaming. 

Windows is the most secure platform for agents

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzhMPCeFc5w Agents don’t work like traditional apps. They can run around the clock, use tools, write code, access files, and act across systems, often without someone watching every step. That requires a new security model built for how agents actually operate. On Windows, that model comes together through containment, identity, and manageability. Containment controls what an agent can access. Identity makes clear which agent acted, so IT can distinguish agent activity from the person using the device. And manageability connects that activity into tools like Agent 365 and Intune, so organizations can set policy, monitor risk, and govern agents across the organization¹.  Together, these primitives allow organizations to secure, observe, and govern agents with confidence.

Expanding the ecosystem of agents on Microsoft Execution Containers, now generally available

Traditional sandbox solutions weren’t designed for agents, where containment needs can change with every prompt and tool call. We built Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) to meet that need. Today, Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), becomes generally available on Windows 11, enabling organizations to define which files and networks agents can access, with those policies enforced at runtime. For individuals using AI on their personal PC², these safeguards are part of the agent experience itself, giving users a more secure way to work with these tools. While MXC works across operating systems, its deep integration with Windows gives organizations more control of their data and a broader range of containment options, from process and session isolation to WSLc, virtual machines, and Windows 365 for Agents. Leading agents already support MXC, including Codex from OpenAI, GitHub Copilot, OpenClaw, Replit, LM Studio, OpenShell from NVIDIA, and Unsloth AI. Many others will be releasing support for MXC: Anthropic Claude Code, Box, Egnyte, Heidi Health, Hermes Agent by Nous Research, Manus, Perplexity, Raycast, and Simular amongst others. We’re also excited to share that Muse for Windows, a personal AI agent from Meta, is coming soon as a native app on Windows with MXC integration, bringing another leading AI experience to Windows and providing more choice in the agents people can use on their Windows PC. To learn more about how developers can integrate their agents with MXC, visit: Microsoft Execution Containers: Policy-driven containment for AI agents. 

Bringing hybrid intelligence to Windows

As AI models grow in size and capability, customers’ needs are outpacing what their cloud budgets can support. They want to make every AI token count without giving up frontier capabilities. Hybrid intelligence brings local and cloud AI together, helping customers stretch their budgets while preserving access to the intelligence they need.   To bring this to life requires powerful local models, intelligent orchestration, a performant runtime, and capable silicon, all working together to create a meaningful experience.

Frontier coding intelligence, running locally on your PC

At Build, we introduced MAI Code 1.1 Flash, a 137 billion total and 6.8 billion active parameters, designed for real-world coding workloads. Today, we’re bringing that intelligence to your device, using 3-bit precision to reduce the model size by nearly 80% while preserving coding quality and supporting a 256K context window locally.  In addition to MAI Code 1.1 Flash, we are bringing other powerful models like an upcoming Nemotron model from NVIDIA – with over 70 billion parameter and quantized in 2-bit to use just over 20GB of memory and DeepSeek V4 Flash, a 284B parameter model, and others for optimal speed and intelligence running locally on RTX Spark.  With optimization and tuning, these models bring what was frontier-class capabilities to local PCs while preserving accuracy and performance — using less memory and fewer system resources.  The goal is to keep AI responsive while leaving room for everything else you do on your PC.

Introducing intelligent routing on Windows with GitHub HydraFusion

https://youtu.be/yzBVjfwgWw8 Earlier this year, GitHub launched HydraFusion, which routes each task to the right model in the cloud.   Today, we’re extending that intelligence to Windows, enabling HydraFusion to tap into models running locally on device, making your tokens go further.   Hybrid intelligence on Windows, powered by HydraFusion is coming to the GitHub Copilot app, GitHub Copilot CLI and Visual Studio Code in experimental preview later in October.   To learn more about how we’re working with GitHub to make this possible on Windows, read: Bringing local models and sandboxed tools to Windows and GitHub Copilot. 

Bringing llama.cpp to Windows ML to provide easier access to open-source models

To power this growing ecosystem of highly capable local models, you need a performant runtime. Windows ML is a scalable runtime to deploy models across GPU, NPU, and CPU, and we’re continuously evolving it.   Today, we’re also announcing llama.cpp support in Windows ML, giving developers more open-source model choices, and the ability to experiment quickly with emerging models as they land.  To learn more, visit AI Development on Windows: from PyTorch and llama.cpp to Windows ML. 

Supercharging Copilot on Windows with hybrid intelligence

Recently, we introduced the new Copilot built around three experiences: Home, Code, and Autopilot. Today, we’re announcing that on Copilot+ PCs, Copilot will get supercharged with Windows hybrid intelligence, providing three key local capabilities.   

• Local context. With your permission, Copilot can understand relevant content on your PC, including files and recent activity, bringing local context into the flow of work. 

• Local actions. Copilot can take action on your behalf across Windows, helping complete tasks like organizing files, assessing device diagnostics, troubleshooting issues, coding, and carrying out workflows directly on your device. 

• Local models. Copilot can tap into AI models running on your PC, using local compute for the right tasks while combining it with cloud intelligence when needed. 

Across Home, Code, and Autopilot, hybrid intelligence makes Copilot more useful on Windows.  In Home, Copilot can use local context from your PC to pull in the files you’ve been working on and help turn them into collaboration-ready artifacts.  In Code, hybrid intelligence helps you create native Windows apps from a single prompt, run code more securely with MXC support, and use local models when appropriate so projects can move faster and token costs can be managed.  And hybrid intelligence will make Autopilot, a persistent, proactive and personal agent, even better. Hybrid intelligence brings local context, local models and PC actions into the agent flow, enabling more grounded personal agent experiences that can continue working on your behalf, even while you focus on other things.  This is the next step for Copilot on Windows, powered by hybrid intelligence. Copilot understands your PC, takes action with your permission, and uses local models when it makes sense, with you in control at every step. Copilot features powered by hybrid intelligence are expected to begin rolling out on Copilot+ PCs in the coming months.³

Offering a range of PCs for agentic work

To bring our vision of hybrid intelligence and new experiences to every desk and every home, you need a broad range of silicon and Windows PCs, from mini desktops up to deskside supercomputers.

Mini desktop PCs, with a simplified out-of-box setup for running agents 

https://youtu.be/DsLkQ04iECA People are already using mini desktop PCs as always-on machines for long-running agents. But too often, getting started requires terminal-based setup, complicated configuration, and security trade-offs that weren’t designed for agent workloads.  Today, we’re announcing a simpler way to set up popular agents on mini desktop PCs in just a few clicks, right out of the box. For OpenClaw users, we’re introducing a native Windows gateway that simplifies setup, along with MXC integration to help keep agents securely contained in a sandbox.  This is just the beginning. Over time, we intend to bring these experiences to more Windows devices, guided by customer feedback, so more people can securely run and work with the agents they choose.

Copilot+ PCs, with hybrid intelligence

Copilot+ PCs established a new class of thin, light and powerful Windows PCs designed to deliver advanced AI experiences on device. Across all Copilot+ PCs, over 2 trillion inferences are run locally per month, improving customers’ experience across search, imaging, and video calls, and today, over 40% of laptops being built for business are Copilot+ PCs. With fast performance, great battery life, and built-in AI features, Copilot+ PCs are your PC for everyday tasks, with even more capability on the way with the new Copilot and hybrid intelligence. See the latest Copilot+ PCs from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Microsoft Surface, at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/shop-pcs.   Copilot features powered by hybrid intelligence are expected to begin rolling out over the coming months on Copilot+ PCs⁴.

Builder PCs, for a new way to create with cloud and local AI

We’re designing new PCs for the builders – the developers, creators, and makers who are pushing the limits of what they can do with their PC. They bring together high-performance local compute and intelligence so people can build, iterate, and create with the right AI capability for the task. Builder’s PCs require powerful silicon, unified memory, and optimized AI experiences built for demanding local workloads. In June, Microsoft and NVIDIA introduced RTX Spark to help usher in this category. Windows will continue partnering with NVIDIA and other silicon vendors to expand these capabilities across more devices. Today, we’re excited to announce pre-order of new Windows PCs powered by RTX Spark from ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI and Microsoft Surface.

Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, available for pre-order

Surface Laptop Ultra, our most powerful Surface ever, brings the vision of hybrid intelligence to life for creators, developers and AI builders. Designed around the RTX Spark, it combines up to 128 GB of unified memory with the ability to run AI models exceeding 120 billion parameters locally, bringing powerful AI compute to demanding creative and technical workflows. Alongside Surface Laptop Ultra, Surface RTX Spark Dev Box brings powerful local AI compute to the desk, helping developers and AI engineers experiment, evaluate models and iterate locally. Both devices are available for pre-order today, with Surface Laptop Ultra available beginning October 16 and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box shipping to customers in the U.S. November.

An ecosystem of Builder PCs, powered by RTX Spark

With Windows on RTX Spark, we're bringing last year’s frontier capabilities to your laptop. New Windows PCs powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark were designed as an ecosystem to maximize performance in tasks like local inference, image and video generation. We’re proud to support our device partners as they meet the unique needs of our customers. Across Windows PCs with RTX Spark, builders can see significant local AI performance gains compared with an Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with M5 Pro, including up to⁵:

• 2.1x faster time to first token⁶
• 4.3x faster AI image generation⁷
• 6.2x faster AI video generation⁸

Today you can pre-order the following PCs: 

• ASUS ProArt P16 and ASUS ProArt P14: Combines powerful AI performance, ASUS Lumina Pro OLED displays and big capacity battery life in slim, lightweight 16- and 14-inch designs built for creators on the go.

• Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition: The first XPS laptop powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark, giving creators and developers studio-grade performance, professional display accuracy, and local AI development in a premium, portable design.

• HP OmniBook Ultra 16: Combines an ultra-thin premium design with breakthrough thermal innovation, delivering sustained performance for the most demanding AI workloads.

• Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1: A versatile convertible that combines NVIDIA RTX Spark with a 360-degree design and dual-surface pen input for creators who need high performance and flexibility to work independently or collaborate.

• MSI Prestige N16 Flip AI+: Combines a thin-and-light 2-in-1 design with a 16-inch UHD+ Tandem OLED display, NVIDIA AI acceleration and a 99.9Wh battery for creators, professionals and gamers on the go.

• Surface Laptop Ultra: The most powerful Surface Laptop ever, built around NVIDIA RTX Spark with up to 128GB of unified memory, a 15-inch touchscreen and a new thermal architecture engineered for sustained performance. 

All of these RTX Spark Windows PCs are available for pre-order starting today and begin shipping October 16. The RTX Spark based dev boxes and mini desktops will be coming later this year.

AI supercomputers, with DGX Station for Windows

With Windows on DGX Station we're bringing last quarter’s frontier capabilities to your desktop. At the top of the range, we’re excited to announce that new supercomputers powered by NVIDIA DGX Station will be available on Windows later this year. Utilizing the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, DGX Station for Windows brings data-center-class performance together with enterprise grade security and manageability. This unlocks the power to run frontier-class models locally, from Llama 4 Maverick and Kimi K2.6 to DeepSeek V4 Pro, at more than a trillion parameters⁹. Capabilities that once required renting a cluster, now in a deskside supercomputer. This brings a new level of AI compute to Windows, enabling developers, engineers, scientists and organizations everywhere to run frontier-class models and agentic workloads on devices that were previously limited to the cloud or data centers. The DGX Station for Windows enables 2 key customer scenarios:

• Personal AI Supercomputer: For the most demanding engineering, scientific, and research workloads, DGX Station for Windows enables a generation of powerful Windows applications accelerated by multimodal agents that can model, perceive, and design for the physical world.

• Scalable Windows Token Factory: DGX Station for Windows can also serve as powerful token factory for teams, supporting 32 or more simultaneous agents serving teams of developers, engineers, or researchers, helping reduce cloud token consumption.

By keeping inference local, organizations can keep sensitive data and IP within their own environment and manage their AI Supercomputers and Token Factories using the same trusted tools they use across their Windows fleet today. The result is a shared AI resource on Windows that helps lower operating costs, improve responsiveness, and give teams greater control over how and where their AI workloads run. Paired with MXC, it’s never been easier to build, govern, secure, and trust end-to-end agentic loops on Windows. Today we welcome the Dell Pro Precision with GB300, and HP ZGX Fury AI Station, both coming later this year, alongside more from our other OEM partners, running the Windows platform organizations know and trust.

Windows gets more capable across everyday tasks

Hybrid intelligence opens up an entirely new chapter for Windows, but innovation isn’t only about what’s next. It’s also about making the experiences you rely on every day faster, easier and better, from getting things done to how you play. 

Introducing actions in Windows Search: Go from finding to doing

https://youtu.be/Nj5KL9yDlwE Search has always been about quickly helping you find what you need. Today, we’re introducing a new Windows Search experience that is faster, more efficient, and enables richer experiences, beginning with thousands of new actions that will be available directly from the taskbar.  These new actions help you finish tasks right where you started, without opening another app or navigating through additional screens. We’re starting with familiar tasks where saving a few steps can make a meaningful difference in everyday use.    Here are a few things to try:  

• Turn something on or off. Try phrases such as “switch to dark mode, “turn on Do Not Disturb,” or “enable Airplane mode.” 
• Make a quick adjustment. Try “dim my screen” or “mute.”
• Manage your workspace. Try “minimize all my windows,” or “arrange my windows.”
• Send a message. Try “Text Elisa I’ll be there soon.” 

We will also begin adding the option to integrate the new Copilot with Search on the taskbar, so you can get quick answers inline from Search, and if you want to have a richer conversation, you can jump from Search directly to the full Copilot app. This experience will be opt-in, and will first start rolling out to select markets later this year. New actions will begin rolling out to Windows Insiders in the experimental channel today. Visit to read more: From searching to doing: Building a faster, more streamlined Windows Search . 

Advancing gaming across the Windows PC ecosystem

Gaming is a fundamental part of Windows, and with new Windows PCs powered by RTX Spark, we’re continuing to expand where and how people can play the games they love.  Over the past several years, we’ve made significant investments to improve the gaming experience on Arm-based Windows PCs with expanded availability of Prism, support from leading anti-cheat providers, and XBOX PC app compatibility.   RTX Spark™ now raises those investments to new levels for gaming performance and graphics capabilities, showcased by Gears of War: E-Day, with support for features like DirectX raytracing, variable rate shading, and DirectStorage. Gears will also be the first to offer expanded support for Advanced Shader Delivery, cutting first-launch shader compilation from minutes to seconds and helping reduce in-game stutter, so players spend less time waiting, and more time playing.  Combined with growing support from game developers and publishers such as Electronic Arts, Embark, Tencent and Ubisoft joining KRAFTON, NetEase, Riot Games, Epic Games and more, players now have access to a deep and growing catalog of PC games on Windows on Arm, including Fortnite, Alan Wake 2 and the new World of Warcraft: Forever, and other top titles coming soon, like League of Legends, Valorant, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Genshin Impact and other top titles on Arm-based Windows PCs.  And we’re super excited to announce that in 2027, Call of Duty will be coming to RTX Spark™.   Windows is the home for PC gaming and together with our partners, we’re making Windows on Arm continue that heritage. That means more of the games players love, richer graphics, and less time waiting to get into the action.

Innovation built on a foundation of quality

Innovation only matters when the foundation underneath is great. Over the past year, the team has been hard at work improving Windows quality, and we continue to invest in everyday performance, reliability, and craftmanship that have meaningful impact on the way people experience Windows. This work has spanned giving customers more personalization and control in places like Windows updates, Start and taskbar, Search, the Windows Insider program, as well as deep investments with our partners to enhance driver quality, reliability and security with our ecosystem. It has also included significant efforts to make Windows the best destination for developers, including optimizations specific to the developer experience. In July we shared how this work continues as we deliver ongoing improvements customers can feel across each of these areas, which will only grow in importance with the new capabilities we’ve shared today. The way forward for Windows   This is the future we’re building: agents that can work securely on your behalf, intelligence that moves seamlessly between local and cloud, and devices that become more capable than ever before. At the same time, Windows will continue to get better at the everyday experiences people rely on — from Search to gaming and everything in between. From the edge to the frontier, Windows is the home for hybrid intelligence — helping individuals and organizations get more done, more efficiently, with security built in.  Explore the new Windows PCs powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark and join us at Microsoft Ignite in November to learn more about putting hybrid intelligence to work for your organization.

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[1] Governance at scale may require additional services. [2] Windows Update required. Features will roll out over time, and availability and timing may vary by device, market, and silicon platform. [3] Windows Update required. Features will roll out over time, and availability and timing may vary by device, market, and silicon platform. [4] Availability and timing may vary by device, market, and silicon platform. [5] Compared with an Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with M5 Pro and 64 GB of memory, tested Windows PCs with NVIDIA RTX Spark. [6] Based on Microsoft-commissioned testing conducted in September 2026, comparing a selection of preproduction Windows PCs with NVIDIA RTX Spark (64 GB) and a preproduction Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra with NVIDIA RTX Spark (64 GB) against an Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with M5 Pro (64 GB). Tested in llama.cpp using the Qwen3.5 27B model (Q4K-Medium) with a fixed 8,192-token prompt. Performance varies significantly by device configuration, usage and other factors. [7] Based on NVIDIA testing conducted in September 2026, comparing a selection of preproduction Windows PCs with NVIDIA RTX Spark (64 GB) and an Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with M5 Pro (64 GB). Tested in ComfyUI using FLUX.2 Klein 4B at NVFP4 precision, four sampling steps, and an output resolution of 1024 × 1024. Performance varies by device. [8] Based on NVIDIA testing conducted in September 2026, comparing a selection of preproduction Windows PCs with NVIDIA RTX Spark (64 GB) and an Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch with M5 Pro (64 GB). Tested in ComfyUI using LTX 2.3 22B at NVFP4 precision, 121 frames at 25 fps, eight steps, and an output resolution of 1280 × 720. Performance varies by device. [9] Powered by the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip with up to 748 GB of coherent memory and 20 petaflops of FP4 AI compute, it delivers data-center-level performance, supporting large AI models up to 1 trillion parameters.

Windows has adapted to emerging threats for decades, all while operating at unparalleled scale. It's our responsibility to bring clarity, transparency and sustained investment so customers understand what is happening, what Microsoft is doing and how they can reduce their exposure. The pace of vulnerability discovery is changing with advances in AI making it possible to find more issues, faster, across more code, with new mechanisms that can accelerate both discovery and analysis. The fastest way to reduce customer exposure is to find issues before attackers can use them. Windows is expanding its ability across the platform to find issues earlier, accelerate the engineering work to fix them, strengthen validation and deliver timely, high-quality updates that keep customers protected.

Finding vulnerabilities earlier and at greater scale

By applying AI across security analysis, we can identify patterns faster, prioritize risk and scale vulnerability discovery across the Windows codebase. This helps reduce the time between discovery and customer protection. It includes using Microsoft Security’s multi-model agentic scanning harness (MDASH), which utilizes multiple models including leading third-party AI vulnerability discovery models. To run MDASH at Windows scale, Windows set up dedicated cloud infrastructure for scanning and proving. A scanner pipeline scans critical binaries and validates candidates using multi-model debate across multiple model families. Confirmed candidates then flow to a separate, Windows-specific prove pipeline that helps eliminate remaining false positives, so only the highest-confidence findings reach the engineering team. This automation helps handle a larger volume of potential vulnerabilities and shortens the review window for new ones, shrinking the attack window for zero-day exploits. This effort extends beyond Windows as we work across Microsoft to drive broader adoption of these tools and practices throughout both the company and the wider ecosystem. We partner closely with AI-powered scanning teams across Microsoft’s product divisions, sharing insights, comparing best practices and aligning on key findings. In parallel, we collaborate with the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) to continuously refine the end-to-end process from vulnerability discovery and issue filing to remediation and validation. We also regularly reassess our prioritization and rollout strategy based on lessons learned and feedback gathered through our Chief Information Security Officers’ (CISOs) engagements with customers. We continue to evolve our internal systems and practices so that vulnerability discovery is not treated as a separate activity, but as part of how we build, review and improve Windows before new features or updates are released. As a part of this we are updating our Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) best practices to ensure our secure-by-design approach explicitly accounts for potential AI-enabled attack techniques and exploit paths. That means using AI to help identify potential issues earlier in the development process, while relying on human expertise to evaluate findings, make risk-based decisions and ensure fixes meet the quality bar customers expect. As AI helps defenders discover more issues, customers will see a higher volume of security updates included in each security release. This is evidence that defenders are getting better at identifying and addressing issues. Our focus is to effectively utilize these AI tools to support faster protection, stronger engineering systems and more actionable guidance for customers.

Fixing responsibly with AI and engineering discipline

Windows is evolving our engineering and validation systems to reduce the time from discovery to protection, with areas where customer risk is greatest. As we build our end-to-end system from discovery to remediation of vulnerabilities on Windows, we’re making the following investments to help ensure that we are not compromising update quality as we gain speed:

• We are integrating AI into our process to compress the path from discovery to a validated fix, helping engineers understand failures faster, propose candidate fixes consistent with the surrounding code, surface related issues elsewhere in the codebase and select the regression tests most likely to be affected by a change.
• Windows updates undergo validation across a range of testing environments, including the Security Update Validation Program (SUVP) and internal validation designed to help evaluate compatibility, reliability and real-world usage scenarios. This broad validation helps identify functional, application compatibility and quality issues before updates are broadly released.
• We’re also investing in new technology, including Windows-specific tools and agentic harnesses, to enable end-to-end generation and validation of fixes using AI, keeping humans in the loop when it comes to code review.

Customers rely on Windows updates to protect their environments, and they also need confidence that updates will deploy smoothly across diverse devices, applications and configurations. That is why quality remains central to this work. As we increase the pace of vulnerability discovery and remediation, we are also committed to giving customers practical ways to test, deploy and monitor updates in their own environments. In cases where customers see signals of potential issues or regressions, they can connect with Microsoft Customer Service and Support to report the issue and/or learn if it is a known issue. In the event of an issue, we are able to employ Known Issue Rollback (KIR), a mitigation technology that allows customers to quickly revert a targeted change, fix, functionality or feature that caused the problem, to its previous behavior. This approach allows the customer’s security protections to stay in place instead of uninstalling an entire update to fix an issue.

Helping customers safely stay current

The most important guidance is to stay current and take security updates as soon as possible. Timely patching is one of the most effective ways to reduce exposure, especially as AI accelerates the speed at which vulnerabilities can be discovered and exploited. We also recognize that every customer's situation is different. Many organizations need to assess risk, validate updates, sequence deployments and prioritize critical assets. When Microsoft releases security updates, we share Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) information and high-level guidance about the vulnerabilities addressed in the Security Update Guide, including available context on risk and mitigations where applicable. Customers should use that information to build a risk map for their own estate, prioritize protections for high-value targets and accelerate deployment where exposure is greatest. To help organizations prepare with less disruption, we also provide production-quality optional non-security preview ("D") releases ahead of the planned security update release for the following month for testing. These cumulative releases include new features and quality improvements. We target optional non-security preview releases for the fourth week of the month, two weeks before they'll see these features become part of the next monthly security update. These previews enable compatibility testing across a broad set of devices, applications and environments, helping identify issues earlier and increasing confidence in the quality and deployment readiness of the subsequent monthly security updates. Security is not just about responding faster to vulnerabilities. It is also about reducing exposure to security attacks. Windows is designed with multiple layers of protection enabled by default, strong identity protection with Windows Hello, the ability to reduce reliance on administrator privileges, trusted application experiences and hardware-rooted security. Together, these capabilities help organizations reduce exposure, strengthen resilience and provide a more secure foundation as organizations assess, test and deploy updates across their environment. To learn more about Windows security, see the Windows 11 Security Book or the Windows Server 2025 Security Book for your Server fleet. Windows also works closely with Microsoft Defender and the broader security ecosystem to help protect customers during the window between vulnerability disclosure and full deployment of security updates. Where possible, Microsoft Defender provides detections and protections that add another layer of defense. Through programs such as Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), Microsoft also collaborates with security protection and antivirus partners so they can prepare protections for customers as security updates are released. We recommend that customers update their security endpoint software to the latest version and take daily signature updates for best protection. Intune helps teams identify gaps, enforce compliance and deploy fixes across endpoints, and Azure Arc makes it easy to connect Windows Servers outside Azure to Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

Tools that make patching easier

A holistic patch strategy depends on tools that help teams move across the full lifecycle: automate what can move fast, identify what still needs attention and limit exposure when devices or apps fall behind. Modern management capabilities such as Windows Autopatch with hotpatch enabled, available in Microsoft Intune, can help accelerate security updates and minimize disruptions for your Windows 11 devices. With Autopatch, customers can configure the automatic deployment of Windows security updates, driver updates and firmware updates, across rings with the option to pause based on reliability signals, so issues can be contained before they spread. Autopatch now surfaces a security-risk and compliance overview with device-level drill-down, so customers can see where their estate is exposed and how to reconfigure their policies to stay more secure. Windows Servers can be hotpatched as well through Azure Arc, enabling rebootless security updates for your critical infrastructure and VMs across the fleet, manageable at scale with Azure Update Manager. Intune Enterprise Application Management helps keep apps current. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, Windows and Intune insights help teams understand remaining exposure and prioritize remediation. Compliance policies, Conditional Access and security baselines help enforce the desired state across the endpoint estate, or harden devices when updates can’t be applied right away. Together, these capabilities help customers move from a time-based patching cadence to a more continuous, risk-based approach. For practical guidance on operationalizing patching across endpoint estates, see the Microsoft Intune blog on building a patch strategy for today’s threat pace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdjSkbKXoJw

Building trust through continuous improvement

The threat environment will continue to evolve as AI advances, with researchers continuing to find new classes of issues and attackers looking for ways to move faster. Our response is to keep strengthening the systems that help us find vulnerabilities earlier, fix them responsibly and support customers through safe, timely updates. As the pace of vulnerability discovery increases, customers shouldn’t have to choose between speed and stability. Our job is to help customers stay protected while deploying updates with confidence. Windows will continue investing in the systems, engineering practices and platform protections needed to reduce exposure responsibly at global scale.

Today at NVIDIA GTC, Microsoft and NVIDIA announced the world’s most powerful and efficient thin-and-light Windows PCs ever. Accelerated by NVIDIA RTX Spark, these new PCs unlock incredible momentum for developers, creators and power users, and are purpose-built for the new wave of agents. This marks a key milestone in the rich, full‑stack collaboration between Microsoft and NVIDIA spanning gaming, AI and cloud – from DirectX and RTX to NVIDIA‑accelerated AI workloads on Azure – driving end-to-end innovation for our shared customers. These next-generation Windows PCs represent the next step on that journey. Builders and creators today are reimagining how things get done, and they need reimagined hardware, silicon and platform capabilities to support them. They need PCs capable of running graphically intensive tasks efficiently, highly capable AI models, and a platform that simply and securely runs agents locally. It’s the combination of Windows’ platform and ecosystem leadership, with NVIDIA's silicon innovation and industry-leading graphics and AI leadership, that has resulted in a collection of powerhouse laptops that will redefine how developers and creators interact with their PCs.

“NVIDIA and Microsoft share a vision that agents are the future of personal computing,” said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of personal computing at NVIDIA. “RTX Spark combines NVIDIA's full technology stack with Microsoft Windows and is purpose-built for creators, gamers and AI developers in the personal AI era.”

Taking Windows to the next level on RTX Spark

RTX Spark delivers 1 petaflop of AI performance, industry-leading performance-per-watt, full stack NVIDIA AI and RTX graphics technology, with up to 6144 Blackwell RTX cores, up to 20 power-efficient cores built with the Arm architecture and up to 128GB of unified memory. Paired with Windows, it unlocks the capabilities creators and developers need to run advanced workloads, build with the tools they depend on and even play their favorite games. Bringing Windows to RTX Spark enables you to do the work that matters on silicon that delivers the performance you demand. Great silicon deserves deep platform work. We optimized Windows to bring out the full performance of RTX Spark.

Performance and power management

To get the most out of Windows on RTX Spark’s powerful, heterogeneous architecture, we implemented workload profile scheduling (WPS) and optimized it for RTX Spark, enabling the Windows scheduler to more efficiently scale workloads across all 20 cores. Whether you’re checking your email or running an agent locally to debug code, the Windows scheduler on RTX Spark will ensure you get the best performance and efficiency out of your CPU. We also worked with NVIDIA to enable the Microsoft Power and Thermal Framework (MPTF) on RTX Spark, to maximize performance and power on the go. MPTF standardizes one of the most complex parts of a modern PC and will enable RTX Spark based PCs to deliver industry-leading power efficiency while staying cool under intense workloads. Beyond its industry-leading performance per watt for creative, AI and gaming workloads, RTX Spark is positioned to take advantage of our advancements to DirectX 12, including support for neural rendering and optimized ray tracing performance, and has been tuned to maximize the performance of its Blackwell GPU, making it one of the best places to play on Windows. In addition, Microsoft and NVIDIA have worked to unlock the power of the GPU for local AI workloads through Windows ML, enabling AI developers to leverage TensorRT natively in Windows.

Unified memory optimizations

To realize the potential of up to 128GB of unified memory on RTX Spark, we have focused on improving how Windows supports unified memory systems, starting with a new higher, smarter limit on total system memory accessible by the GPU. This updated limit increases the memory available to the GPU on high-memory systems, unlocking the ability to load larger local AI models or render more complex projects. Memory intensive workloads across powerful creator apps, AI workloads and games put a variety of demands on the system and require a versatile memory system to achieve peak performance.  In addition to increasing the memory available to the GPU, we are also enhancing how Windows manages page sizes in shared memory regions on unified memory systems.  These changes ensure that larger memory pages are available for greater performance on heavier workloads, while giving developers the flexibility to optimize for the needs of their memory workloads between CPU and GPU.

Prism emulation enhancements

Prism, our emulator for running 32-bit and 64-bit x86 apps on Windows on Arm, will also be present and optimized for RTX Spark powered PCs.  Prism ensures apps run well on these devices even if those apps haven't been built for the Arm architecture. We have continued to enhance the Prism emulator with additional performance and compatibility features, building on the Prism optimizations delivered last year that added support for the AVX/AVX2 instruction set extensions. Prism has been tuned for the microarchitecture of RTX Spark and when combined with the raw power of the silicon, unlocks great performance for developers, creators and gaming workloads running under emulation.

Windows quality investments

This year, we've been laser focused on raising the bar on performance, reliability and craft across Windows 11. As the Windows foundation strengthens, we are also pushing forward on this next era of Windows computing and delivering meaningful improvements to system performance that will benefit all Windows 11 PCs including these new PCs powered by RTX Spark. This includes changes like more fluid and responsive app interactions by moving many core Windows experiences to the WinUI3 framework and elevating the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) experience, along with baseline reliability improvements across the operating system and more control and personalization, including alternate taskbar positions. These quality-focused updates will continue to roll out throughout the year.

Delivering a better platform for agents with Windows on RTX Spark

This week at Microsoft Build, you will see how we are optimizing the Windows platform for building and running agents securely with OS-enforced identity, containment and manageability. With a powerful GPU and up to 128 GB of unified memory, RTX Spark will be great hardware to build and run agentic workloads locally, with security and containment features designed to help protect users. NVIDIA is bringing NVIDIA OpenShell to Windows, built on new Windows security and containment primitives. Hermes Agent and OpenClaw will be integrating OpenShell and these new Windows primitives inside of their Windows application. This enables customers to run agents and integrate them into developer and creative workflows, with the performance headroom to reason over large contexts without round-tripping to the cloud. Control is a fundamental principle for AI on Windows. You choose when and how agents act on your behalf, with controls to help provide visibility into what they can access.

Enabling the Windows ecosystem for RTX Spark

From the app developers optimizing their software for this architecture, to our OEM partners building these new powerful PCs, the Windows ecosystem has come together to ensure RTX Spark delivers a complete, performant experience from day one.

App ecosystem growth

Silicon and OS optimization matters, but what you can actually run on the device is what customers experience. We have partnered across the ecosystem to ensure these new PCs powered by RTX Spark will launch with broad application support. Over the last two years, Microsoft and NVIDIA have worked with a breadth of app developers to make significant advancements to optimize the apps people want and rely on for Arm-based devices. As a result, PC users on RTX Spark will immediately benefit from an expansive ecosystem of native and performant apps. For creatives, top tools like Blender, DaVinci Resolve, Maxon Cinema4D, Maxon Redshift, Topaz Photo, CapCut, Cubase, Bitwig Studio, Affinity by Canva and more all run natively on Arm today, as do the audio, video, MIDI and control peripherals they require. Adobe’s flagship applications including Photoshop and Premiere are likewise native, and have partnered with NVIDIA and Microsoft on additional optimizations for the RTX Spark. Apps for technical creators are also optimizing for this platform, including MATLAB, one of the most popular, which now officially supports Windows on Arm via Prism. Across apps, RTX SPARK can unlock new capabilities and speed for workflows like video compositing, rendering complex 3D geometries, or using the latest AI-driven tools for content analysis and transformation. Game developers have also laid a strong foundation for RTX Spark’s arrival. Today, anti-cheat solutions from partners like Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye, expanded Prism emulator compatibility, and XBOX PC app support means players will have access to a deep catalog of Windows PC games. RTX Spark will bring even higher levels of gaming performance to AAA titles on Arm. Riot Games, one of the world’s leading game developers and publishers, has confirmed that League of Legends and VALORANT are coming to the platform. PUBG: Battlegrounds, the iconic battle royale title from KRAFTON, will also be joining the expansive catalog of compatible titles including PRAGMATA, Alan Wake 2, Naraka: Bladepoint, War Thunder and more. Top agentic and AI developer workloads like GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, ComfyUI, Cursor and more now run across all modern PC silicon – making Windows the ideal platform for AI-assisted development, or for leveraging the power of the GPU to train, optimize and evaluate models. For developers, our partnership with NVIDIA on RTX Spark plans to bring additional exciting technologies like CUDA-accelerated PyTorch, Ilama.cpp, TensorRT, Hugging Face frameworks, Unsloth, Kohya and more.

PC ecosystem adoption

Windows and RTX Spark bring to life the most powerful and efficient thin-and-light PCs with all-day battery life¹, optimized for developers and creators who need to trust that they can power through advanced workflows, in a portable package. These PCs will join the Copilot+ PC category, with powerful NPUs for local AI processing in addition to the GPU, unlocking rich AI-powered experiences. Beginning this Fall, RTX Spark will power a full range of Windows laptops and small form factor desktop PCs, starting with Microsoft Surface, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and MSI.

Introducing Surface Laptop Ultra

Surface Laptop Ultra. Built for world makers and creative pros, Surface Laptop Ultra brings cutting-edge AI performance into a thin, precision-engineered laptop designed for sustained high performance. From rendering to compiling to local AI workflows, this is uncompromising craft meets raw power – a new kind of performance for the people who create what's next. To learn more, visit the Devices blog by Brett Ostrum, Corporate Vice President, Surface. We are also proud to support the announcements of our PC partners:

• ASUS: The ASUS ProArt P16 and ASUS ProArt P14 combine powerful AI performance with slim and lightweight designs built for creators on the go. Available in 16-inch and 14-inch models with elegant Nano Black and new Neo White color options, the laptops feature ASUS Lumina Pro OLED displays and exceptional all-day battery life for premium creative experiences anywhere.
• Dell Technologies: The XPS 16 Creator Edition delivers serious GPU power built for creative work with smoother playback on 4K timelines, faster exports and a more seamless experience with AI tools. The Tandem OLED display with True Black HDR 600 ensures your visuals look exactly as intended. Add in a built-in SD card reader and HDMI port, and you've got a machine that's as capable in the field as it is back at your desk.
• HP Inc.: The HP OmniBook Ultra 16and HP OmniBook X 14 laptops are built for creators, gamers and AI developers, providing powerful local AI performance and experiences that help users accelerate workflows.
• Lenovo: The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9n marries Lenovo Yoga's creator-focused features with NVIDIA's newest chip to deliver a laptop that is portable, powerful and can last for extended periods away from an outlet.
• MSI: The Prestige N16 Flip AI+ combines a premium thin-and-light 2-in-1 design, a 16-inch UHD+ Tandem OLED display, NVIDIA AI acceleration and a 99.9Wh battery. It delivers immersive visuals, advanced AI experiences, and exceptional mobility for creators, professionals and gamers.

We can't wait for developers and creators to experience what's possible when stunning graphics, incredible performance and cutting-edge AI come together in these powerful, portable PCs.

Scaling the power of Windows to NVIDIA DGX Station

Today's announcement is an important step on our journey to unleash the full power of Windows to NVIDIA silicon, from powerful laptops to data center class workstations. Together with NVIDIA, we’re scaling Windows from RTX Spark through to DGX Station for Windows, up to a trillion-parameter AI supercomputer powered by the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, later this year. This unlocks breakthrough AI performance on Windows, the platform enterprises trust for manageability, security and compatibility, with seamless access to the Linux AI ecosystem through Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). With NVIDIA GB300‑class capability on Windows, we are making a step‑function leap in performance, fundamentally changing where advanced AI work can happen – enabling developers and organizations to run frontier‑class models and agentic workloads locally that were previously primarily available in the cloud or data centers. Pairing the GB300 Superchip with an additional NVIDIA RTX PRO™ Blackwell Workstation GPU enables developers to combine frontier AI compute with ray-traced visualization and simulation in a single deskside system — delivering the performance needed for agents to perceive, simulate and interact with the physical world. By bringing AI on‑device, organizations can keep data close and shape how it’s used to meet their own compliance and data boundary requirements, complementing cloud workloads. This shift opens new possibilities, lowers the barrier to experimentation, and makes unmetered, always‑available AI compute a native part of Windows workflows. We are building toward a future where Windows provides a unified foundation for AI, from the device in your hands to the infrastructure behind it. Stay tuned over the next couple of days. We look forward to sharing more on our vision of Windows for developers at Microsoft Build. ^{1 Based on internal testing of pre‑release units. Battery life varies significantly based on usage, settings and other factors.}