Microsoft on Monday presented a new multi-agent artificial intelligence (AI) system called Magnetic-One. The tech giant called it a high-performance system capable of activating multiple AI agents to perform complex tasks through web browsers locally on a device. It is based on a new framework that allows an AI model to access multiple modalities and capabilities to perform tasks such as booking a ticket, purchasing a product online or modifying a a document stored on the device. Notably, Microsoft’s Magnetic-One is an open source project and is accessible to researchers and developers.
Microsoft presents Magnetic-One
Generative AI has taken a big step forward in artificial intelligence and its ability to generate output in text, image, audio and video formats. However, while modern AI systems are great at retrieving information, they are still poor at reasoning, especially when it comes to solving problems and completing tasks.
This is why AI agents, which can be understood as miniature software capable of executing an action, have become an important extension of large language models (LLM). Microsoft’s Magnetic-One also works on the same principle, as detailed in a research paper. The company describes it as a “high-performance, general-purpose agentic system” designed to perform complex, multi-step tasks such as software engineering, data analysis, scientific research and web browsing.
Magnetic-One has a multi-agent architecture, which means that an LLM can activate multiple agents to accomplish a task. To do this, the AI system activates a main agent called Orchestrator. He leads four other agents where each agent specializes in one task.
The Magnetic One workflow
Photo credit: Microsoft
For example, if the system is asked to book a ticket for a movie, Orchestrator could trigger a vision agent that can look at the screen and process the visual information. Another might have knowledge of web browsers and be able to manage their browsing. The third might be breaking down the prompt into actionable steps, and the fourth might be being able to handle financial transactions. By dividing the task between several specialized agents, the precision and speed of execution are increased.
The open source Magnetic-One AI system is available on GitHub and accessible here. It is accessible to researchers and developers and can also be used for commercial purposes under a custom Microsoft license. At the same time, Microsoft also released AutoGenBench, a tool that evaluates the performance of AI agents. It comes with built-in controls for repeat and isolation to thoroughly test agents.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a press release)
