Steven Bathiche

Steven Bathiche is a Microsoft CVP and Technical Fellow who founded and leads Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group, an interdisciplinary hardware, sensing, human-computer interaction, and AI research team within Windows and Devices. His work includes Surface-era interaction technologies, Copilot+ PC AI features, edge AI, and agent-first computing concepts such as Project Solara.

Microsoft Bets Enterprise Agents Will Run Through the Cloud

John Coogan reads Microsoft Build 2026 as a sign that Microsoft is trying to make the cloud, not the phone, the center of enterprise AI agents. On Diet TBPN, he argues that Project Solara, Scout, OpenClaw support and Microsoft’s own models point to a platform strategy built around Azure, Microsoft 365 data, security boundaries and cost-efficient deployment rather than frontier-model supremacy. The open question, he says, is whether agent hardware and workflows can win adoption outside environments where companies can mandate them.

TBPNJun 3, 202614 min read