Research
Enabling everyone to shape AI Project Volano is carrying out cross-disciplinary research to understand how we can value and utilize community perspectives throughout the whole of the AI pipeline. Our first use case is to support historically marginalized communities shape their cultural representation in AI…
Empowering everyone to understand digital content provenance through human-centric design "Generative AI is blurring the boundary between authentic and synthetic media. Without accessible, human-centered provenance tools, we risk drifting into a post-epistemic world where fact and fiction cannot be reliably distinguished." Advances in generative AI…
Cryptographically securing the authenticity of digital assets As generative AI accelerates the creation of realistic synthetic media (e.g., photos, videos, audio, documents), it is increasingly difficult for people and platforms to distinguish authentic content from fabricated or manipulated material. Provenance technologies aim to restore trust…
MSR Synth is a research project exploring how to design AI agents with social intelligence—agents that can communicate, collaborate, and participate in human interaction in ways that are context‑aware, trustworthy, and aligned with human values. Drawing on human–computer interaction, AI‑mediated communication, and social computing, the…
This project studies the data protection challenges when models and agents interact with sensitive data across multiple users. Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in enterprise settings where thLarge language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in enterprise environments, where they serve multiple users and…
Communication-centered computing Communication shapes how societies create, share, and preserve knowledge. Yet today’s digital tools remain organized around static formats that enforce rigid separations between creation and consumption, author and reader, expression and interpretation. These structural constraints fragment collaboration and limit how knowledge evolves over…
< AI for Good Lab Language is more than communication—it sustains culture, identity, and opportunity. Yet most of the world’s languages remain underrepresented in today’s AI systems because they have limited digital content, few high-quality datasets, and little benchmark data to measure progress. Our work…
Automated evaluation and testing of AI agents AI agents are rapidly transforming software, with projections of over a billion agents in operation by 2028. These agents, embedded in products like VS Code and M365 Copilot, perform increasingly complex tasks—writing code, conducting research, and automating workflows.…
Small foundation models for the electric grid GridFM is a Microsoft Research initiative to build small foundation models for the electric power grid, applying the same recipe that drives modern language and weather models to the physics of AC power flow. The first release in…
This project aims to push the boundaries of agentic AI by addressing three critical challenges: long-horizon memory, safe and aligned tool usage, and adaptive reasoning. Current language models excel at text generation but lack agency—the ability to plan, act, and adapt in dynamic environments. The…
This project explores how Generative AI can transform supply chain management from rule-based automation to true autonomy. Building on the MIT autonomous supply chain testbed, it integrates multiple AI agents that learn, adapt, and coordinate decisions across forecasting, inventory, and replenishment—cutting costs by up to…
This project develops a unified framework for physically grounded world modelling that combines video-based temporal prediction with Gaussian Splatting for photorealistic 3D representation. A Physics Vision-Language Model translates natural-language instructions into transformations that respect physical constraints, enabling interpretable and goal-directed control in dynamic scenes. By…
Meet our community of researchers, learn about exciting research topics, and grow your network
Ongoing conversations at the cutting edge of research
Join us for a continuous exchange of ideas about research in the era of general AI