Decision models are emerging as an important new category in AI. Unlike LLMs, which are designed to generate text or reason through complex problems, decision models are purpose-built to deliver structured outputs that software can immediately act on. Making decisions and classifying things at very low cost with high performance unlocks many useful tasks.
Microsoft is introducing Microsoft-Decision-1, a new model for fast decision-scoring, available in Microsoft Foundry and coming soon through Open Router. It is designed for routing, classification, prioritization, verification, and workflow control, making it easier to add decision intelligence to existing applications, agents, and workflows in a secure, trusted environment.
Microsoft says the model delivers top performance in latency and quality on structured decision tasks. It achieved the highest accuracy in a 36-benchmark comparison spanning nearly 150,000 questions kept blind from training. In benchmarking, it was the fastest measured: 4.5 times quicker than Quyet-1.0-Large, the runner-up, and 35 times quicker than GPT-6 Sol.
To build the model, Microsoft post-trained Qwen3.5-9B for fast, single-pass decision scoring, and will soon rebase it on other models, including Microsoft AI (MAI) and Open AI. Given a fixed set of answer options, it provides a calibrated probability score for each option, supporting yes/no, multiple-choice, and rating options, as well as rubric-based grading of AI responses and agent actions through a structured API call.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing