Microsoft introduced a new artificial intelligence model on Friday, October 9, built for one specific job: making fast decisions. The model, called Microsoft-Decision-1, is designed to choose between fixed options rather than write long answers, and the company says it makes decisions 35 times faster than OpenAI's GPT-6 Sol. Microsoft also says it posted the highest accuracy across 36 benchmarks covering nearly 150,000 questions, at a price of $0.042 per million input tokens with output tokens free of charge.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the launch on X (Twitter):

Introducing Microsoft-Decision-1, our new model for fast decision-making. It delivers top performance on structured decision tasks, outperforming both LLMs and other decision models in latency and quality. We're already testing it across Microsoft for everything from incident… pic.twitter.com/M3fAOD90r6

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) October 9, 2026

In the post, Nadella said the model delivers top performance on structured decision tasks, outperforming both large language models and other dedicated decision models in latency and quality. He added that Microsoft is already testing it across the company, with early use cases including technical incident response and quality control for AI answers.

Speed and Design

According to Microsoft, Microsoft-Decision-1 runs 35 times faster than OpenAI's GPT-6 Sol. In the company's own tests, it also ran 4.5 times faster than a rival decision model called Quyet-1.0-Large.

Microsoft-Decision-1 is not a typical chatbot. It does not generate detailed written responses. Instead, it picks between a set of fixed options, such as yes-or-no answers, multiple-choice selections, or a rating scale. That focus separates it from the general-purpose LLMs it was benchmarked against, which generate open-ended responses rather than choosing among set options.

A post from X user Afiz (@itsafiz) highlighting the release offered additional technical details:

Meet Microsoft-Decision-1 by @Microsoft A small model built for one job: fast decisions Routing, classification, agent controls, AI judging. It returns a calibrated probability for every option. → Post-trained from Qwen3.5-9B → 35x faster than GPT-6 Sol → 4.5x faster than… pic.twitter.com/7jzxnhT18I

— Afiz ⚡️ (@itsafiz) October 9, 2026

According to that post, the model was post-trained from Qwen3.5-9B and returns a calibrated probability for every option, with intended applications spanning routing, classification, agent controls, and AI judging.

How Companies Could Use the Model

Businesses could use the tool to sort customer support tickets or decide which technical problems need attention first. The model can also check whether another AI system's answer meets certain quality standards, a process sometimes called AI judging. Because it attaches a probability to each option, teams can see how confident the model is before acting on its pick.

Microsoft said simple tasks like these matter more as AI systems take on longer jobs. Each decision adds time, so a faster model can speed up the entire process.

Benchmarks and Pricing

The company ran tests across 36 benchmarks covering close to 150,000 questions. Microsoft says Microsoft-Decision-1 scored the highest accuracy among all options tested.

Pricing is set at $0.042 per million input tokens, with no charge for output tokens. Microsoft says that adds up to savings of up to 200 times lower cost in some internal tests. The pricing structure fits the model's format, since its answers are fixed selections rather than long stretches of generated text.

Testing Across Microsoft's Own Products

Nadella said Microsoft is already using the technology inside its own teams. One use case is technical incident response. Another is quality control for AI answers.

The Xbox research team used the model to review more than 10,000 customer comments from surveys, Steam, and social media posts. Microsoft said the results matched GPT-6 Sol in quality, but the model ran over 14 times faster and cost about 200 times less to run.

The Copilot team also tested the system, using it to check AI-generated responses for quality. Microsoft said the model delivered similar results at close to 100 times the speed of another advanced AI model. Both internal trials point to the same trade-off Microsoft is emphasizing: matching the quality of larger models on decision-style work while cutting the time and cost of running them.

Developers can access Microsoft-Decision-1 through Microsoft Foundry. The company also plans to make it available through OpenRouter, a platform that connects developers to different AI models.

What Analysts Say About the Stock

Wall Street analysts currently rate Microsoft stock as a Strong Buy, based on 36 Buy ratings and one Hold rating over the past three months. The average price target sits at $586.14 per share, which reflects about 9.3% upside from current levels.

Microsoft has not said when it plans to expand testing of Decision-1 beyond its internal teams. The company said it will keep releasing updates to improve the model's speed and accuracy over time. The planned listing on OpenRouter would also extend access beyond Microsoft Foundry once it goes live.

This article originally appeared on Coin.