GeekWire is profiling over the next few weeks some of the people and teams that are shaping the evolution of Microsoft in what we’re calling its “Microsoft 2.5” era.

Just Don’t Call It an ‘Agentic OS.’ Given Microsoft’s one-pointed AI focus these days, it’s not surprising that the Windows organization is on the agentic train.

But Executive Vice President of Windows + Devices Pavan Davuluri has learned the hard way not to call Windows an agentic OS. He did so back in November 2025, via a tweet and blog post, and the customer backlash was quick and biting.

But Davuluri has not done a complete U-turn because of the criticism. Instead, he has changed how he talks about where Windows is going — which is still in an agentic direction.

“The user of Windows going forward will continue to be users … but it’s also going to add these agentic workloads,” the nearly 26-year Microsoft veteran Davuluri told GeekWire in a recent interview.

During his time at Microsoft, he’s held a variety of roles, from intern to General Manager of Surface, to Corporate Vice President of Windows Silicon & Systems Integration. He was appointed Executive Vice President of Windows + Devices in March 2026, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella.

Windows needs to evolve to support agentic workloads through new platform capabilities that the team is building under the covers, Davuluri said. These low-level capabilities, or “primitives,” affect how Windows handles security, identity, governance, observability, and performance when it comes to building and running agents natively.

These coming changes likely will affect the Windows file system, security model, PowerShell, and other foundational components.

Microsoft already is working on Windows identity and manageability to make them better able to service agents. Windows can assign agents a local ID, or a cloud-provisioned identity backed by Entra.

And it also has an early preview of technology known as Microsoft Execution Containers, meant to help secure agents by running untrusted code in sandboxes or virtual machines. It’s these system-level areas where the team is focusing first in preparation for a human+agent future, Davuluri said, rather than the UX/UI level.

Going Back to Basics. Windows has had a lot of very different leaders over the years, with very different management styles and priorities.

For his part, Davuluri said he plans to run the Windows and Surface teams with four principles in mind: Maintaining customer obsession; treating Windows as a complete end-to-end system (“full stack”); focusing on complete user experiences and workflows rather than individual features; and building Windows openly and transparently, with clearer communication about plans and priorities.

On the heels of his promotion to EVP, Davuluri committed publicly to the much-needed goals of improving Windows quality and reliability. In a blog post, he outlined some of the requested changes that his team would be making to Windows, ranging from fixing the way the Insider test program works, to more granular improvements like allowing users to reposition the Windows task bar.

And since then, the team largely has been delivering to the surprise and delight of many long-time Windows users.

Davuluri has also been working to shift the conversation from which new features are coming to a specific build to what are the outcomes Microsoft wants to enable for specific groups of Windows users.

“There is no one single sort of ring for a billion-plus users on the platform,” Davuluri said. Windows users encompass people who use the product in a variety of different ways, so “we need to get clarity in our minds on the things that we do that lift all boats that raise the entire platform — and things that we have to go do that are specific and unique to each of our sets of users based on how they primarily or typically use the device.”

Full-Stack Thinking. Is there still a role for Microsoft as a PC maker in the coming agentic future? Not surprisingly, given his heavily hardware-focused background, Davuluri insisted there is.

When Microsoft debuted its first Surface devices in 2012, officials said the company needed to build its own hardware to create reference designs and innovative form-factor examples for other Windows PC makers.

These days, most Surfaces that ship arguably are not better, spec- or design-wise, than other PCs. But Microsoft still needs to keep a hand in hardware design to understand the full stack, Davuluri claimed.

Surface plays a key role in how Microsoft develops platform abstractions, incubates support for technologies like pen, facial-recognition, and neural-processing units that later spread across Windows, and optimizes for silicon-to-cloud, he said.

While the company’s attempt to create a distinct category of “Copilot+” AI PCs fizzled, Microsoft continues to try to find AI-centric reasons to convince customers to choose Windows devices. Davuluri and others have referred to the idea of “unmetered intelligence” to attempt to make the case for running AI models locally on PCs.

This fall, Microsoft (and other Windows PC makers) plan to roll out new PCs built on the Nvidia RTX Spark platform. The coming Surface Laptop Ultra, which will be optimized for RTX Spark, is aimed at creators, developers and AI builders, all of whom — Microsoft is hoping — will be fueling the growth of its next target user category: Agents.

This week on “Uncanny Valley,” we dig into a former Anthropic researcher’s AI doomsday warning, the latest upgrades from Apple’s event, and the census report that claimed Trump won the 2020 election.

[Editor’s Note: Jacob Colker is co-founder and co-managing director of AI House.]

Seattle is one of the most talented, creative and inventive places in the world. But if we want the rest of the country to see us that way, we have to start acting like we believe it ourselves.

First, we need more pride around here.

Let’s talk about what it means to be proud. 

My mother grew up in Tarnów, Poland. She escaped communism and came to the United States in 1978 looking for a better life. She found one, built a family, and has lived in America for nearly 50 years. 

But my mom is still very, very Polish.

Several times a year, I get a message: “Jakub. Did you see this?”

I already know what’s coming. 

Some Polish person did something. A Polish athlete won something. A Polish scientist discovered something. Some guy with a Polish grandmother finished third in a regional Nebraska chess tournament. Doesn’t matter. Poland.

“Jakub. Look at this person.”

Okay, Mom. Who is she?

“POLISH.”

That’s it. That’s the story. 

And I love it, because Mom has this completely indestructible pride in where she comes from. Plenty of us know someone like this: a Greek mom, Vietnamese dad, Indian uncle or Nigerian aunt. Somebody from their corner of the world did something great, and you are going to hear about it.

There is power in that instinct. Not because your people are better, but because you believe your place matters.

Seattle could use more of that.

We are almost pathologically humble. Our response to notable achievements is often a polite nod before everybody gets back to our regularly scheduled Seattle freeze. 

That humility is working against us.

Second, Seattle is awesome and the evidence is everywhere.

I see Seattle’s potential every day working alongside dozens of entrepreneurs building startups. Some of the most ambitious and talented people in the world are already here.

We have many billion-dollar startups across the region and more than 200,000 people working across technology, science, space, health and startups. That is more than enough talent to build yet a dozen more unicorns. 

Nearly 40% of the world flies every day on airplanes built here. Blue Origin and SpaceX build rockets here. Starbucks, Amazon, Costco, REI and Nordstrom reshaped how the world shops. Microsoft helped put computing into our homes. AWS and Azure helped make the cloud the infrastructure of modern life. The University of Washington ranks among the world’s best. Seattle medical breakthroughs have helped save tens of millions of lives. We are pushing forward fusion energy, aerospace and maritime innovation. And let’s not forget: we just won the darn Super Bowl.

And so, so much more. 

So why, despite all the evidence, do we still seem to have a communal case of imposter syndrome?

This is not a city lacking accomplishments.

It is a city with a branding problem.

Third, we have let other people tell our story for far too long. This ends, today. 

Cities have brands whether they intend to or not. Silicon Valley is where ambitious people build companies. Nashville is music. Los Angeles for film and television.

Seattle’s cultural humility mostly assumes our accomplishments speak for themselves.

They don’t.

Reputation gets built one story at a time. You hear one story and it is interesting. You hear 10 and you notice a pattern. You hear 50 and your beliefs begin to change: That’s where important science happens. That’s where talented people live. That’s where I should invest, build or work.

Those beliefs shape real decisions about where people move, where companies get built and where investors put their money.

So to fix Seattle’s branding problem, here’s what we need to do.

Step 1: Let’s tell one clear story — Seattle’s talent pool is ridiculous. 

Seattle is where deep technical talent meets deep domain expertise to build consequential things: AI, aerospace, cloud computing, medicine, fusion, robotics, maritime technology and enterprise software.

We do not need 50 slogans. We do not need another consultant-led branding exercise. We need one simple idea that people outside this region can remember: Seattle’s talent pool is ridiculous.

There is a reason some of the world’s most important companies have built major engineering centers, research hubs and second headquarters here for decades. They come for the talent.

And that talent is why Seattle will not just participate in the future. We will lead in building it.

Step 2: Let’s use the megaphones we already have.

Seattle already has outlets (including this one) telling this story — publications, podcasts and social channels that document the region’s startups, breakthroughs and product launches. 

Every day, startups are raising money, scientists are making breakthroughs, companies are launching products, engineers are building technology and institutions are pushing this region forward.

That is not just tech news. That is the raw material of Seattle’s reputation. So let’s use it.

When you read or hear about a Seattle startup doing something remarkable, share it. When you see a story about a breakthrough at Fred Hutch or the University of Washington, send it to someone outside the region. When a local company raises money, lands a major customer or gets acquired, don’t just scroll past it. Amplify it.

Step 3: Let’s treat every local win as Seattle’s win.

When a local robotics company ships something remarkable, that is Seattle’s story.

When a maritime startup reinvents how ports operate, that is Seattle’s story.

When our AI research labs, or hometown heroes in Amazon and Microsoft, create breakthroughs, that is Seattle’s story. 

When a biotech company lands a major breakthrough, when a game studio creates a global hit, when a clean-energy company reaches a milestone, that is Seattle’s story.

Our companies, universities, hospitals, labs, investors, civic organizations and business leaders should act like an amplification network for one another. Stop treating somebody else’s success as somebody else’s news.

Their win is our collective proof.

Step 4: Let’s put Seattle on the label.

Founders need to say where they are building. “Made with ❤️in Seattle” should be on the bottom of every website. Put Seattle in the press release. Put it in the LinkedIn post. Mention it onstage. Say it in interviews. Tell investors. Tell customers. 

Silicon Valley companies have spent decades attaching their success to their geography. We should do the same. If you build something extraordinary here, make sure the world knows it was built here.

Step 5: Let’s do a better job of selling Seattle.

Every venture capitalist, founder, executive and civic leader in this region should be able to explain in 60 seconds why somebody should build a company here.

Not defend Seattle. Not apologize for Seattle. Sell Seattle. 

Reminder: It’s the talent. 

(And also cream cheese on hot dogs.)

When investors and founders from New York, Boston or San Francisco come to town, show them the region. Introduce them to engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs. Bring them into the community. Let them see what is happening. 

The best branding campaign is somebody getting on a plane home saying, I had no idea all of this was happening in Seattle.

If we’re going to succeed, we need to believe first.

Insert all the Ted Lasso jokes you want, but this stuff matters. 

There is no giant Seattle marketing department coming to save us. There is no national referee who will eventually review the evidence and declare that Seattle deserves more respect.

When somebody here does something extraordinary, act like it. Read the story. Share the post. Send the article to your team. Text it to your friend in New York. Put it in the group chat. Bring it up over dinner. Tell your kids.

Basically, become my Polish mother.

My mom doesn’t give a hoot that Kraków ranks No. 6 on some list or Warsaw is No. 8 on another. She doesn’t need a clickbait listicle to tell her Poland matters. She already believes it does.

We have to build our reputation ourselves. The good news is that we already have everything we need: extraordinary companies, world-class institutions, ambitious people, groundbreaking science and media documenting it all.

What we have been missing is the confidence to start being more loud. Stories become patterns, patterns become reputation, and reputation becomes gravity. 

Gravity is what creates influence and respect.

Pride is not something somebody else gives you. You don’t wait until the rest of the country decides your home is important. YOU decide it is. Then you act like it.

Let’s get to work. 

The legal AI startup and VC darling has nearly doubled its valuation in nine months.

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday urged a court to dismiss a Disney lawsuit and let the FCC continue a proceeding that could end in the nonrenewal of ABC's broadcast licenses.

Meanwhile, two watchdog groups and individual viewers of ABC stations are trying to intervene in the lawsuit, saying they are worried Disney will agree to a settlement with the FCC that isn't in the public's interest. Disney opposed the motion, and a judge will have to decide whether the groups and individuals can act as intervenors in the case.

Disney sued the FCC on August 18, saying the agency is waging a “campaign of censorship” to retaliate against ABC for speech that President Trump doesn't like. As the lawsuit gets underway, Trump continued his attacks on the media last weekend by demanding that the FCC punish or rebuke an NBC journalist for saying he has “mixed results” in his election endorsements.

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This week on Uncanny Valley, we dig into the latest prediction market buzz, Flock’s AI-powered police search tool, and how tech bros don’t know how to talk about “rouge” AI agents

New Jersey yesterday asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether states can regulate sports betting on prediction markets such as Kalshi.

“Companies like Kalshi claim to offer legal sports betting in all 50 states, but they refuse to follow the gambling laws of any state," New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a press release announcing the lawsuit.

In April, the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that New Jersey cannot regulate sports bets on prediction markets. The court determined that sports-related event contracts meet the legal definition of "swaps," giving the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) exclusive jurisdiction.

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1Password is facing customer and internal employee backlash after pledging $300,000 to support a Linux distro created by David Heinemeier Hansson, who has regularly published racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. "The popular password manager is now a 'distinguished corporate patron' of Omacom, the nonprofit foundation that oversees a popular Linux distribution known as Omarchy," reports The Verge. From the report: One viral blog post declared that 1Password "Supports the Ethnic Cleansing of Europe" because of the donation. Others on social media asked for suggestions for alternative password managers so they would not support the funding of a project from Heinemeier Hansson, better known as DHH. The donation has also resulted in internal pushback from employees of 1Password who are disappointed by the affiliation, The Verge has learned. 1Password CEO David Faugno and cofounder Roustem Karimov have since posted internal messages addressing what Faugno describes as "concerns, both internally and externally" that have been raised "due to the polarizing nature" of DHH. DHH is a Danish entrepreneur best known for creating Ruby on Rails, Basecamp, and the Hey email client. Omarchy is DHH's "opinionated" version of Linux, meaning it's Linux the way he likes to use it. It's based on Arch Linux, with certain apps that install by default. It's also, apparently, one of 1Password's big customer environments. [...] In an internal Slack message obtained by The Verge, 1Password's Karimov downplayed the overtly racist comments from DHH, telling staff the following: "As I said, people have different personal opinions. You believe in your heart that DHH is evil, that you have the moral high ground, and that nothing will change your mind. However, not everyone believes that. It is not fair to claim a monopoly and ostracize team members who might disagree with you. There are people who are afraid to speak up simply because they will be personally attacked." 1Password CEO Faugno took a different approach, trying to reassure staff that "1Password does not endorse hateful, dehumanizing, or exclusionary views, including those shared publicly by DHH." Nonetheless, it seems the company has sacrificed a moral position for a "mission-driven" position. In the same message to staff, Faugno says "the scale and growth of [Omarchy's] use among our customers is significant -- Omarchy has grown to be the second most used Linux distribution among 1Password users." Faugno then tries to create distance, telling staff that its contribution is "to the Omacom Foundation, not an individual." Still, he says "we recognize that Omarchy is associated with DHH, its founder. Our donation is not in any way an endorsement of his personal views or conduct."

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While a fresh wave of AI-generated wealth is pouring fuel on San Francisco’s housing market, Seattle’s real estate scene is getting left out in the cold, stuck in a slump driven by ongoing local tech layoffs, soaring costs, and persistent worker anxiety.

A new report published Wednesday by Seattle-based Redfin illustrates just how dramatically the housing markets in the West Coast’s top two tech hubs have split.

In July, San Francisco’s median home-sale price jumped 6% year-over-year to $1.6 million as home sales rose 8.5%, fueled by an 18.4% drop in active listings—the largest inventory contraction in the country.

By contrast, Seattle’s median sale price dropped 3.6% to $809,479 as home sales fell 9.1% and active listings surged 16.7%, the nation’s steepest inventory increase, leaving local sellers outnumbering buyers by 65%. Redfin detailed the drop in pending sales in the city in an earlier report.

San Francisco’s resurgence is fueled by a concentrated wave of AI wealth. Driven by big salaries, six-figure signing bonuses, and anticipation of massive IPOs for Bay Area giants OpenAI and Anthropic, affluent buyers are aggressively bidding up homes, frequently paying hundreds of thousands over asking price.

The frenzy mirrors findings from The New York Times, which reported in May that cash-flush AI startup employees and secondary stock sales are fueling hyper-concentrated bidding wars across the Bay Area.

In Seattle, the dynamic is reversed. While local tech giants pour billions into AI infrastructure, corporate belt-tightening and lingering layoff fears at companies like Amazon and Microsoft have squelched buyer confidence, leaving prospective buyers cautious, job mobility low, and listings piling up.

Ground-level real estate agents in the Seattle area are feeling that buyer hesitation firsthand.

“Layoffs in the tech world are dampening homebuying demand in the entire area,” said Sheryl Wingate, a Redfin Premier agent, noting that return-to-office policies are further squeezing demand in outlying suburbs as tech workers avoid long commutes amidst job uncertainty.

Seattle-area real estate isn’t just feeling the squeeze from the heavyweights. Job cuts have hit nearly every tier of the regional tech ecosystem this year, sweeping through engineering hubs for Meta, Google, and Salesforce, consumer brands like Zillow, T-Mobile, and Starbucks, corporate divisions at Expedia and TikTok, and startups including Qualtrics and Amperity.

The chill is hitting the region’s high-end neighborhoods hardest. According to Bloomberg, pending luxury home sales in the Seattle area plummeted 15%, driven by a double hit of tech-sector layoffs and Washington state’s higher taxes on top earners. Once-frenzied markets in Eastside suburbs like Bellevue and Sammamish have stalled, with homes priced over $2 million sitting for an average of 44 days as affluent tech buyers pull back.

By comparison, high-end buyers in San Francisco are doubling their budgets as AI confidence surges. Redfin noted that luxury pending sales in the Bay Area jumped 46% year-over-year, with local agents reporting tech clients doubling their price points — in some cases expanding from $2 million budgets to nearly $4 million — and placing offers as much as $900,000 over asking price.

The shift is also severing a key migration pipeline that long fueled Seattle’s housing boom. While high-earning Bay Area transplants historically moved north to stretch their tech compensation, Redfin migration data shows the net inflow of home shoppers moving from San Francisco to Seattle plummeted to just 369 people in the first quarter — down from over 5,100 five years ago.

Looking ahead, Redfin economists expect these diverging trends to play out across other tech hubs as artificial intelligence reshapes the labor market.

“AI is reorganizing the tech labor market, with San Francisco and Seattle representing two sides of that transition,” said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s head of economics research, adding that while AI creates rapid wealth in some markets, it drives corporate restructuring and caution in others.

X is investigating a wave of unsolicited password reset emails that it believes may be tied to the rollout of its new payments service.

BT could make more than $2.7 billion by recycling copper from its aging UK landline network as BT subsidiary Openreach replaces legacy wiring with full-fiber broadband. Engadget reports: BT's recovered copper was previously valued at around $2 billion. But prices have surged, thanks to rising global demand tied to AI data centers, renewable energy and electrification. With global demand expected to grow sharply over the next decade, the value of BT's copper could potentially exceed even that $2.7 billion estimate. The BT subsidiary Openreach is in the process of replacing its legacy copper network with full-fiber broadband, with plans to connect 30 million residences by the end of the decade. It's already recovered nearly 10,000 metric tons of copper in its latest financial year and over 22,000 metric tons since 2023. "Copper has become one of the most strategic materials in the modern economy," according to Openreach's head of sustainability, Abby Chicken. Unsurprisingly, BT isn't waiting to profit from the recovered metal. It has an agreement with EMR, a cable recycling company, and recently received $133 million up front for recovered copper.

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Kalshi has issued its first-ever lifetime ban to former U.S. Rep. George Santos after concluding he failed to fully cooperate with an insider-trading investigation. He is also being fined $71,356, according to a filing (PDF) on its website. Engadget reports: It was reported in June that Santos was under investigation from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over insider trading. Prediction markets like Kalshi allow users to buy contracts or shares in the outcome of events. Participants don't necessarily have to wait for an event to resolve before selling these contracts and cashing in. Santos allegedly bought contracts on Kalshi indicating that he would not attend this year's State of the Union speech after weather disrupted his travel plans. According to the CFTC, Santos then sold those contracts for a profit after claiming on social media that he would be in attendance. The former congressman is said to have made more than $17,500 through this scheme, which Kalshi reportedly detected and flagged to authorities. In July, Santos agreed to pay over $35,000 to settle the CFTC's claims against him. The agency also issued him a three-year trading ban. Kalshi, however, doesn't plan to allow Santos back on its platform in 2029 (or anytime after that). The company confirmed to The Wall Street Journal this was the first time it had given anyone a lifetime ban and that it did so because Santos didn't fully cooperate with its investigation. He can appeal the decision to the CTFC.

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Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey is warning that advanced "frontier" AI models could materially increase cyber risk across the global financial system by making attacks faster, cheaper, and more scalable. In a letter to G20 finance officials, he said financial firms need stronger defenses and contingency plans for simultaneous disruptions. CNBC reports: Writing in his capacity as chair of the Financial Stability Board, an international body that coordinates policy and makes recommendations to national authorities, Bailey identified the potential impact of frontier AI -- which refers to the most advanced AI models -- on cyber risk as "the most immediate concern" for the financial system. "Frontier AI may have the ability materially to alter the speed, scale and economics of cyber risk, which could undermine market confidence system-wide, especially due to highly concentrated third-party service providers," Bailey said. "Recent developments have also highlighted to me that many jurisdictions do not have the protocols in place to manage the development, release, and deployment of advanced frontier AI models, heightening risks for the financial sector and beyond," he added. [...] Financial institutions and technology providers will need to improve vulnerability management, response and recovery capabilities -- "and prepare for more severe scenarios involving simultaneous disruption across multiple firms or shared technology dependencies," Bailey said. Alongside new AI models, Bailey cited "fragilities" in sovereign debt markets, the growing use of debt by investors in equity markets and stretched asset valuations, particularly AI-related investments, as among his concerns.

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Apple is raising Apple TV's U.S. price to $14.99 per month, up from $12.99, while the annual plan jumps from $99 to $119. It's the service's fourth price hike in four years and means the monthly cost has now tripled from its $4.99 launch price in 2019. Apple One's Individual plan is also rising from $19.95 to $21.95 per month.

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Panic is refunding Playdate customers the 19% tariff charges it passed along while the Trump administration's import duties were in effect, after the Supreme Court ruled the tariffs illegal and the company began receiving refunds from the government. Panic says the money "just [wasn't] ours to keep." Ars Technica reports: In an update posted on the Playdate help site this week, Panic noted that it has finally "begun to receive refunds of the tariffs we paid in the last year" and had consequently "refunded all tariffs charged to customers." In the initial version of that tariff note, Panic explained that it couldn't afford to simply "absorb" the 19 percent tariffs it was being charged to import Playdate hardware made overseas because "our margins on Playdate are low." As such, while the tax was in effect, it was passed along to customers as an explicit subtotal line item at the bottom of all Playdate orders. That's in contrast to companies like Nintendo, which vaguely cited "market conditions" and tariff "uncertainty" in raising the asking price of legacy hardware and some Switch 2 accessories last year. Speaking to Game Developer, Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser said filing paperwork to claw back these taxes and processing tariff refunds for customers took a fair bit of backend work. Still, he said returning that money to Playdate purchasers in the end was a no-brainer. "It's just not our money to keep, and it felt really good to give it back," Sasser said. "That's an easy way to know you made the right decision." "It just felt like the right thing to do," Panic wrote in a refund email message shared on Reddit.

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GeekWire is profiling over the next few weeks some of the people and teams that are shaping the evolution of Microsoft in what we’re calling its “Microsoft 2.5” era.

From AI Frontier Lab to Frontier Ecosystem: Microsoft got a foothold in AI thanks largely to its partnership with OpenAI. But that’s not the way it is planning to continue growing its AI business.

Inside Microsoft AI (MAI), the Microsoft Superintelligence team is focused almost entirely on building its own frontier-level models. That team already has developed a handful of home-grown offerings, including MAI-Code-Flash for writing code faster; MAI-Cyber-Flash, a cybersecurity model; and MAI-Image, a model for creating images.

The head of the Superintelligence team is Ali Farhadi, corporate vice president of AI. Farhadi, who joined Microsoft five months ago, is also a professor at the University of Washington, where he has worked for nearly 15 years. He was previously CEO of the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and before that was an AI and machine learning leader at Apple for more than three years, after it acquired his startup, Xnor.ai.

When he joined Microsoft, Farhadi said in a LinkedIn post that he believed “Microsoft has all the pieces to win in this AI race: data, search, coding, infrastructure, agents, software and the world’s biggest Fortune 500 companies taking dependencies on Microsoft every day.”

Farhadi elaborated on that in an interview with GeekWire this week. AI is shifting from a “Frontier Lab” era to a “Frontier Ecosystem” era, he said. It’s no longer just about training models; it’s about integrating the models with enterprise data, platforms, distribution systems and customers in a trusted way.

The next battlegrounds in AI will be around cost, reliability, specialization, and deployment at scale, rather than simply building larger models that beat others in benchmark scores, he said.

“If you look around, there are not that many places to have all these missing pieces together at scale, especially if you add the element of trust to it,” Farhadi said.

Cutting through the AI noise: Farhadi said his management philosophy is grounded in the importance of personal relationships, which are especially key in big organizations. People need to understand your rationale and to trust you can deliver on what you’re tasked to do, he said — an approach that has served him inside both Microsoft and Apple.

Staying on top of the flow of information while filtering out the AI noise makes prioritizing crucial. The team has “a long list of things that we believe we should be doing,” he said, but much of it stays on the back burner to maintain a “laser focus on delivering on the main mission.”

The priority is building high-quality models, both generalist and domain-specific. On the domain-specific front, Microsoft is working with the Mayo Clinic on a healthcare-specific model based on Mayo’s own clinical data, as well as Microsoft’s cybersecurity and coding models.

The thinking: For a lot of enterprise work, a narrower model beats a bigger one.

“If you can do something at [the same] quality or better quality at a fraction of a cost, it’s just a no-brainer. And having a way to specialize to domains, to industries, to enterprises is one way,” he said.

Microsoft execs have referred to this approach as a “hill-climbing machine,” meaning the ability of a model to scale and continuously improve within a specific domain. Microsoft is coupling the hill-climbing with “frontier tuning,” like it is doing with the Mayo Clinic. Frontier tuning includes customizing frontier models; keeping proprietary data private, preserving institutional know-how; and avoiding leaking intellectual property (IP) into shared models.

“We all thought that IP is your data,” Farhadi said. “But we learned that IP is also how you work.” And that’s why safeguarding these elements is so crucial.

Open all the things? Farhadi led an expansion of open-source AI development at Ai2, the Seattle-based institute founded in 2014 by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. While Microsoft has contributed to the open-source community on various fronts, including AI tooling, it hasn’t open-sourced its frontier models.

Farhadi said he personally remains “a big advocate of open source,” but noted that the industry has changed since his Ai2 days as there are now more credible Western open-source models and businesses forming around them.

He didn’t rule out Microsoft doing something in open-source models, or the somewhat less-open “open weights” area, but there’s seemingly nothing happening on that front in the near term.

In the coming months and beyond, the focus of Farhadi’s team is helping Microsoft turn into a Frontier Ecosystem by building cutting-edge AI capabilities; helping enterprises create their own tuned versions of them; continuously improving models; and making sure customers keep control of their own destinies and data.

Success for Microsoft’s Superintelligence team has nothing to do with the idea of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) which OpenAI, Anthropic and others have positioned as their ultimate goal over the years. In fact, when I asked Farhadi about AGI, he said, “I don’t understand what that means.”

Don’t worry, Ali. You’re not the only one.

MONTEREY, Calif.—Next month Bentley will reveal its first battery-electric vehicle. The British automaker is no stranger to electric motors; it now offers plug-in hybrids across its range, even replacing the Continental GT's W12 with a new plug-in hybrid V8. The addition of electric motors perfectly suits the marque: what's more Bentley than waves of effortless torque, after all? But until now, there's always been a combustion engine along for the ride. Not so the Torcal.

Clad in plastic and wrapped in a multi-hued dazzle camouflage, it's shorter in length and height compared to a Bentayga, although it is similarly voluminous on the inside thanks to the inherent packaging efficiencies of an EV. If the proportions remind you of a Porsche Cayenne EV, that's because the two share quite a lot of the same basic engineering, albeit reworked by Bentley to suit its needs. The target is 300 miles (482 km) in EPA range or 600 km (373 miles) under WLTP, from the battery pack, and like the Cayenne, expect 400 kW DC fast-charging.

Bentley is targeting the sports SUV segment with the Torcal. It's 5 meters (16 feet, 5 inches) long, which is shorter than a Bentayga. Credit: Bentley

Don't expect the Cayenne's quadruple-figure power output, though. "We'll be well over a thousand newton-meters of torque [737 lb-ft], which is one of the sort of enabling pillars of the technology, which is fantastic. There'll be over 850 PS [838 hp/625 kW], but we're not chasing four figures," said Martin Page, product line director for the Torcal.

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Portland-based social media startup Graze is joining Flipboard in a strategic acquisition aimed at expanding open social protocols and giving users control over their own content algorithms.

Founded by Devin Gaffney, Peat Bakke and Andrew Lisowski — starting from a blog concept and officially forming 21 months ago — Graze has grown into an engine for the open social web.

The Graze platform has delivered over 41 billion posts to 12 million users. It enables creators, publishers and everyday users to build, tune, and monetize custom social algorithms, particularly across platforms like Bluesky, without writing a single line of code.

In announcement announcing the deal, Gaffney said that Graze marks the most important work of his career, creating a new “playbook for how to re-orient the attention economy, and start pulling us back out of the widening gyre.”

Under the direction of Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has heavily invested in open social protocols like AT Protocol, ActivityPub and RSS through initiatives like its Surf browser and “Social Websites” product.

The acquisition combines Flipboard’s front-end discovery tools with Graze’s back-end algorithmic engine.

“Combined, we become two halves of one machine,” wrote Gaffney. “Surf will be the browser for the open social web — where people go to read and discover feeds across Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, RSS, and more. Graze will be the engine under those feeds — how a curator builds, tunes, and monetizes one without writing a line of code.”

As a lean team, Graze faced a number of operational slowdowns with Gaffney writing that they ended up “wearing a half dozen hats we didn’t know we needed at the start.” Joining Flipboard allows the team to accelerate development by tapping into Flipboard’s established infrastructure rather than rebuilding existing systems from scratch.

“Mike (McCue) and I share a vision of creating an attention economy that works for everyone, and as the onslaught of generative AI starts to clog the pipes of legacy platforms, we both deeply believe that a curatorial role in shaping “the algorithm” is the only sustainable way to run that attention economy into the future,” Gaffney wrote.

For Graze’s existing user base, the team confirmed that the core product and service will remain online. The combined entities aim to offer a creator-first alternative to closed, legacy platforms like Facebook or Instagram, providing users with ownership over what they see and how they earn.

In April 2025, Graze raised $1 million in a pre-seed round led by Betaworks, Salesforce Ventures Factorial, Apertu Capital, Skyseed, and angel investors from Mozilla and Protocol Labs. Graze employed just two people — Gaffney and software engineer Nick Gerakines — and both will be transitioning to Flipboard. Bakke and Lisowski left the company last year.

In an email to GeekWire, Flipboard’s McCue said that the Graze team has built a special tool that has benefited many curators, community builders, creators and developers.

“I’m inspired by their vision and can’t wait to work closely with them to continue building out the open social web,” McCue said. “Devin and Nick will continue to advance Graze as the ultimate feed building and hosting platform while Surf and Flipboard will enable millions of additional users to discover and experience feeds in new ways we’re going to design together.” 

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, though Gaffney tells GeekWire that they are “confident that this is a great outcome for the team, the company, and the investors.”

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Amazon’s delivery drones are going national, nearly 13 years after Jeff Bezos unveiled them on 60 Minutes. We listen back and discuss what’s next.

Plus: We go inside Anduril’s unmarked Bellevue office as the defense company builds toward 1,000 Seattle-area engineers; a reporter hides an AirTag in a rare book and tracks it to a secret Amazon book-scanning facility in Las Vegas; and an Anduril-themed trivia challenge.

Audio editing and production by Curt Milton.

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Amazon drone delivery

• Amazon drone delivery set to expand nationally, reaching nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns this year
• Amazon’s big surprise: Working on autonomous flying delivery drones — GeekWire, December 2013
• Jeff Bezos unveils the Prime Air prototype on 60 Minutes — YouTube
• Amazon Prime Air drone delivery expansion — Amazon
• Andy Jassy’s 2025 letter to shareholders — Amazon
• Walmart, Wing expand drone delivery coverage — Supply Chain Dive

The AirTag and the book-scanning facility

• How an AirTag planted by a reporter led to a secret Amazon site where old books are cut apart and scanned
• We tracked a shipment of rare books. It ended at an Amazon AI training facility — 404 Media
• AI companies are buying tons of old books because they’re free of AI slop — 404 Media
• Trash Transparency Project — Basel Action Network
• America’s e-waste: a GPS tracker tells all — PBS NewsHour
• Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5B to settle lawsuit with book authors — Associated Press

Anduril in the Seattle region

• Inside Anduril’s AI warfighting buildup: Defense giant sees a path to 1,000 Seattle-area engineers
• Anduril exits Seattle shipyard following canceled Navy program and omission from new warship list
• Defense tech giant Anduril eyes new funding at $100B valuation as Seattle expansion draws protests — GeekWire, July 2026
• AI weapons under scrutiny as activists plan weekend protest at Anduril’s Seattle office — GeekWire, July 2026
• Anduril lands $5B as defense giant builds autonomous warship operation in Seattle — GeekWire, May 2026
• Defense giant Anduril is quietly building autonomous warships on Seattle’s historic ship canal — GeekWire, April 2026
• Military tech giant Anduril lands in Bellevue, doubling footprint in Seattle region — GeekWire, July 2025

Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

— Dave Levy, vice president of AWS Worldwide Public Sector, has left Amazon for a role at Google, according to Nextgov/FCW. An AWS spokesperson confirmed his departure; Google did not respond to a request for comment. Levy, who is based in Arlington, Va., was with AWS for more than nine years. He was previously head of U.S. government sales at Apple for 12 years.

Amazon first launched government-specific cloud infrastructure in 2011 and now supports more than 11,000 government agencies. In November, the company announced it would invest up to $50 billion to expand AI and advanced computing infrastructure for U.S. government agencies. That includes support for Top Secret, AWS Secret and AWS GovCloud (US), which serve classified and sensitive workloads.

David Appel, VP of AWS Global Government, National Security and Defense, has taken Levy’s role in an acting capacity, according to his LinkedIn account. Levy’s last day was July 31.

— Kristin Hamilton has been named chief commercial officer for Funko, the Everett, Wash.-based makers of pop culture collectibles. Hamilton joined from Crunchyroll, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. She was previously at Hasbro for nearly 15 years, leaving as the consumer products division’s head of strategy and transformation. Hamilton begins work Aug. 24.

Funko has weathered financial and leadership bumps in recent years, with a quick succession of CEOs and the accumulation of significant debt. The company this month reported a strong second quarter with increased sales over the previous year.

— Seattle cryptocurrency company Coinme has named Laurent Reichert as chief compliance officer, consumer protection officer and Bank Secrecy Act officer. Reichert, who is based in Miami, was previously chief compliance and risk officer for the blockchain company Paxos.

In January, Coinme announced that it had agreed to be acquired by blockchain payments company Polygon Labs. Polygon said it would also acquire wallet provider Sequence as part of a combined deal valued at more than $250 million.

Reichert praised Coinme’s currency trading platform, adding that he looks forward to “the next phase of growth, both domestically and as we move into new international markets alongside Polygon.”

— DAT Freight & Analytics, a Beaverton, Ore.-based truckload freight marketplace, announced changes to its leadership team.

• John Xiao has been promoted to chief technology officer, leading work on DAT’s tech platform, analytics and AI integration. He joined the company two years ago from Nordstrom, where he oversaw technology strategy in merchandising, supply chain and inventory management.
• Marcus Womack, who joined DAT last year through the acquisition of his fintech startup Outgo, is now responsible for DAT’s carrier segment in addition to financial services.
• Kary Jablonski, former CEO of Trucker Tools, which DAT acquired in 2024, continues to lead DAT’s broker business and is also responsible for marketing and customer support.

All three are based in DAT’s Seattle office. The company won GeekWire’s Workplace of the Year Award in May.

— Seattle’s Membrion has promoted Emily Rabe to vice president of technology. Rabe has been with the industrial wastewater treatment startup for six years, leading its intellectual property efforts and most strategic technology programs while also working with external technology partners.

“She has a remarkable ability to take on hard, ill-defined problems, learn quickly and put durable solutions in place,” the company said on LinkedIn.

The startup made two additional promotions: Ryan Flores has risen to senior scientist, and Michael Moreland has been promoted to senior customer success engineer.

Membrion spun out of the University of Washington a decade ago, has raised $40 million and is No. 154 on the GeekWire 200, a ranked index of the Pacific Northwest’s top startups.

— Microsoft’s Jordi Ribas has been appointed to the board of Sprinklr, a company helping global brands manage their customer experience, social media, ads and other marketing. Ribas has been with Microsoft for 26 years, currently as president of search and AI.

— Seattle biotech company Omeros has named Joseph Schocken to its board of directors. In 1987, Schocken founded the investment bank Broadmark Capital, now Tranceka Capital.

— Jay Carney, who served as Amazon’s senior vice president of global corporate affairs for seven years ending in 2022, has left his position as Airbnb‘s global head of policy and communications. He did not indicate his next role.