---
title: 'Microsoft Quietly Added a New Model to Copilot'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=tsOM2x6omCg'
video_id: 'tsOM2x6omCg'
date: 2026-08-08
duration_sec: 81
---

# Microsoft Quietly Added a New Model to Copilot

> Source: [Microsoft Quietly Added a New Model to Copilot](https://youtube.com/watch?v=tsOM2x6omCg)

## Summary

Microsoft has quietly introduced a new family of in-house AI models, with one already integrated into VS Code Copilot. The video highlights the MAI Code 1 Flash model, a fast and cost-effective agentic coding model, and the flagship MAI Thinking 1 reasoning model, which performs competitively in blind tests.

### Key Points

- **Microsoft's In-House AI Model Family** [00:02] — Microsoft has built a family of AI models from scratch, covering five areas: image, voice, transcription, coding, and advanced reasoning. One model, MAI Code 1 Flash, is already available in VS Code Copilot.
- **MAI Code 1 Flash: Performance and Cost** [00:16] — MAI Code 1 Flash is a small, fast, agentic coding model on par with Haiku. It performed well in testing and comes at a fraction of the cost compared to other models.
- **MAI Thinking 1: Flagship Reasoning Model** [00:31] — The flagship model, MAI Thinking 1, is an advanced reasoning model. In blind testing, most users preferred it over Sonic, and it scores close to Opus 4.6 on benchmarks.
- **How to Try MAI Code 1 Flash** [00:58] — To try the model, open the Copilot model picker in VS Code, switch the active model to MAI Code 1 Flash, and run it on coding tasks. The video encourages users to share their experience in the comments.

### Conclusion

Microsoft is expanding its AI capabilities with a new in-house model family, offering developers a cost-effective and high-performing alternative in VS Code Copilot. The MAI models show promise, with the reasoning model already competing well against established benchmarks.

## Transcript

models it has built from scratch and one of them is already inside of your VS Code Copilot. This is one in-house family of AI models across five different areas: image, voice, transcription, coding, and advanced
reasoning. And the one I want to show you is MAI Code 1 Flash, which you can already use from Copilot inside of VS Code. This is a small, fast, agentic coding model that's on par with Haiku. In my testing, it performed pretty well
threw at it, and this comes at the fraction of a cost compared to other models. The flagship model is called MAI Thinking 1, and this is an advanced reasoning model, and in blind testing, Microsoft says that most users preferred
it compared to Sonic. Across benchmarks, it scores pretty close to Opus 4.6, and model they released, so I expect the newer ones to catch up significantly
faster. So, if you want to try this out, go ahead and open your Copilot model picker in VS Code, switch the active model to MAI Code 1 Flash, and give it a run, and let me know in the comments how it performs on your coding tasks. And if
you want to learn more about the new family of models coming from Microsoft AI, I'm going to leave a link in the pinned comment right below, so go ahead pinned comment right below, so go ahead and check it out.