“I will read the seeds a story,” said Toad. “Then they will not be afraid.”

Toad read a long story to his seeds.

“Leave them alone for a few days. Let the sun shine on them, let the rain fall on them. Then your seeds will start to grow.”

AI agents are transforming digital marketplaces, mediating discovery and transactions between consumers and businesses. The new Magentic Marketplace provides an open-source, extensible simulation environment for studying different agentic market designs: msft.it/6014tyz9q

SentinelStep enables AI agents to handle monitoring tasks that run for hours or days, like watching for emails or tracking prices. It works by managing when agents should check and their context, avoiding wasted resources and missed updates. msft.it/6018sC85Y

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn't make any sense.

-Rumi

As agentic AI ushers in a new era marked by tool expansion, systems are converging, and complexity is rising. Microsoft Research explores the Model Context Protocol (MCP) as a new standard for agent collaboration across fragmented tool ecosystems. msft.it/6014scgGq

The Microsoft Research Undergraduate Internship Program offers 12-week internships in our Redmond, NYC, or New England labs for rising juniors and seniors who are passionate about technology. Apply by October 6: msft.it/6015scgSJ

Me the week of the CHI deadline.

Granite Mountain Lookout.