Microsoft turns Windows into a home for local AI agents, with NVIDIA hardware
Today marks a new chapter for Windows, as we bring unmetered intelligence to every desk and every home, and make every PC a place where agents can work securely on your behalf. Some highlights of what we announced: • MAI-Code-1.1 Flash: 137B parameter coding model w/ 256K context window, which is now optimized to run on your PC! • GitHub Copilot now hands off work to local models like MAI-Code-1.1 Flash, helping projects cost a lot less without sacrificing quality. • With Hybrid Intelligence, Copilot can now take action directly on the PC and keep sensitive work on your device. • And with Code in Copilot, you can essentially build any software you need on your desktop, without any cloud token spend, and it’s just super at it. You’re no longer limited to what’s in an app store! Your PC becomes an infinite software factory. • Security is foundational to all this, which is why we are also bringing together Windows and Agent 365 so agents can work within secure boundaries on-device, including MXC a local sandbox for agent execution. Windows becomes your secure agent box! • All this comes to life on a new generation of devices, like Surface Laptop Ultra, powered by NVIDIA RTX Spark. Can’t wait to see what you build with all this.
Context
Coding and assistant work can now run on the PC itself, which cuts cloud token costs and keeps sensitive work on the device.
Microsoft held a Windows event with NVIDIA's Jensen Huang on stage. It announced the MAI-Code-1.1 Flash coding model running locally, Hybrid Intelligence for Copilot, and new Surface hardware on NVIDIA RTX Spark. Replit announced a Windows desktop app preview, and the llama.cpp project was featured during the event.
Deep dive
At an event in San Francisco on October 7, Satya Nadella and Jensen Huang laid out what Microsoft calls hybrid intelligence: Windows PCs that run capable AI models locally and hand work to cloud models when needed.
The centerpiece for developers is MAI Code 1.1 Flash, a Microsoft coding model with 137 billion total and 6.8 billion active parameters. Microsoft says a compressed local version keeps a 256K context window and runs on new PCs built on NVIDIA's RTX Spark chip, which pairs a Blackwell GPU with a Grace CPU and up to 128GB of unified memory. GitHub Copilot will decide when a task can run on the device and when it needs a cloud model, which Microsoft pitches as a way to cut token costs.
With what Microsoft calls Hybrid Intelligence, Copilot can also take actions directly on the PC and keep sensitive work on the device. Microsoft is pairing this with Agent 365 controls and a local sandbox for running agents. Other models shown running locally included DeepSeek V4 Flash and an upcoming NVIDIA Nemotron model.
What to expect next
Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599 and is available from October 16, alongside RTX Spark laptops from ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and MSI. Microsoft says the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box ships to US customers in November, NVIDIA says compact RTX Spark desktops arrive in November, and NVIDIA also previewed DGX Station for Windows.
Microsoft says GitHub Copilot's automatic routing between local and cloud models arrives by the end of October. Tom's Hardware reports that the local and cloud balancing reaches GitHub Copilot, the CLI and VS Code on October 15.