Microsoft launched Decision-1, a new AI decision model built for fast and structured classifications, evaluations, and routing tasks designed to guide and control agents through complex environments. Based on the Qwen3.5-9B architecture, Microsoft reported that the model outperformed competitors across 36 benchmarks containing nearly 150,000 questions while operating 2.5 times faster than the runner-up, H2O-Lightning-4B.
The model is now available to developers through Microsoft Foundry and OpenRouter. Pricing is set at $0.042 per million input tokens, while output tokens are free of charge. This release expands Microsoft's offerings in the rapidly growing sector of specialized AI decision models, following similar tools introduced by companies like OpenAI and Cloudflare.
This release matters because it accelerates competition and lowers costs in the emerging category of structured AI decision-making tools. By leveraging efficient small language models to guide autonomous agents at high speeds, Microsoft provides developers with an economical solution for complex routing and evaluation workflows.