{"slug": "microsoft-launches-hill-climbing-mai-models-for-copilot-and-excel", "title": "Microsoft launches hill-climbing MAI models for Copilot and Excel", "summary": "Microsoft AI on July 23rd, 2026 announced the rollout of two new MAI models built with a hill-climbing training pipeline, integrated into GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Excel. The models claim to match GPT-5.6 in Excel and beat GPT-5.4 Mini in Copilot while using fewer tokens, marking the first product-specific deployments of the approach unveiled at Build in June.", "body_md": "# Microsoft launches hill-climbing MAI models for Copilot and Excel\n\n**Microsoft's Superintelligence team released specialized MAI models that claim to match GPT‑5.6 in Excel and beat GPT‑5.4 Mini in Copilot while using fewer tokens.**\n\nBy [Ryan Merket](/author/ryan-merket)\n· Published\n\n## Why it matters\n\nThe rollout shows Microsoft leveraging its own product stack to create cheaper, specialized AI models, a move that could reshape enterprise AI economics and challenge the dominance of external foundation‑model providers.\n\nOn July 23rd, 2026 Microsoft AI published a blog post announcing the rollout of two new **MAI** (Microsoft AI) models built with the company’s \"hill‑climbing\" training pipeline. The models are integrated into **GitHub Copilot** and **Microsoft Excel**, the first product‑specific deployments of the approach first unveiled at the Build conference in June.\n\n#### From a lightweight code model to a spreadsheet assistant\n\n## Reader comments\n\nConversation for this story loads after sign-in.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-launches-hill-climbing-mai-models-for-copilot-and-excel", "canonical_source": "https://runtimewire.com/article/microsoft-hill-climbing-mai-models-copilot-excel", "published_at": "2026-07-23 16:32:37+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-23 16:39:02.421637+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "ai-products", "ai-tools", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Microsoft", "GitHub Copilot", "Microsoft Excel", "MAI", "GPT-5.6", "GPT-5.4 Mini", "Ryan Merket"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-launches-hill-climbing-mai-models-for-copilot-and-excel", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-launches-hill-climbing-mai-models-for-copilot-and-excel.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-launches-hill-climbing-mai-models-for-copilot-and-excel.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-launches-hill-climbing-mai-models-for-copilot-and-excel.jsonld"}}