Microsoft AI Update May 2026

John Savill recaps the major Microsoft AI updates from May 2026, spanning Azure AI Foundry model/catalog changes, new Foundry capabilities, Copilot Studio updates, and GitHub Copilot feature announcements.

Overview

Models and availability in Microsoft Foundry

Savill runs through model updates and where they show up across Microsoft’s AI platforms:

• Claude Opus 4.8 availability across Foundry, Copilot (Cowork), and GitHub Copilot.
• GPT-5.5 variants:
  • GPT-5.5 Instant (GPT-chat-latest)
  • GPT-5.5 Thinking
  • Mentioned in the context of Microsoft Foundry and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.
• Realtime model options in Foundry:
  • GPT-realtime-2
  • GPT-realtime-translate
  • GPT-realtime-whisper
• Additional model catalog updates in Foundry:
  • xAI Grok 4.3
  • DeepSeek V4 and V4 Pro
  • Kimi 2.6
  • Cohere Command A+
  • New image models
  • MAI-Image-2-Efficient (Foundry Labs)

Microsoft Foundry platform updates

The video highlights platform-level capabilities and releases:

• Trace-based evaluation for external and hosted agents.
• GPT-5 Reinforcement Fine-Tuning (gated GA).
• GA features:
  • Managed VNet
  • Project cost attribution
  • Content Understanding
• “Open agentic stack” from Microsoft Research:
  • MagenticLite
  • MagenticBrain
  • Fara 1.5
• Foundry Local updates (1.1 and 1.2).
• SDK update: azure-ai-projects 2.2.0.
• Foundry IQ.

Copilot Studio updates

Savill calls out changes in Copilot Studio, including:

• Computer-using agents.
• A new workflow experience.

Microsoft 365 Copilot updates (productivity)

The video also mentions Microsoft 365 Copilot changes:

• Redesign.
• Implicit Outlook grounding.
• PDFs in chat.

GitHub Copilot updates

Savill closes with GitHub Copilot updates, including:

• Model updates and availability:
  • Opus 4.8
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (GA)
  • GPT-5.3-Codex
  • Auto model selection
• GitHub Copilot App (Preview).
• Copilot CLI remote control (GA).
• Organizational model rules (Preview).