Fara-7B by Microsoft: An agentic small language model designed for computer use

Microsoft released Fara-7B, a compact 7-billion parameter language model specifically designed to control computers through visual interfaces like mouse clicks and keyboard inputs. Unlike traditional text-based chatbots, Fara-7B can automate web tasks such as booking travel, shopping, and filling forms by directly interacting with websites the same way humans do. The model achieves state-of-the-art performance among similar-sized models, completing tasks in just 16 steps compared to 41 for competitors, while enabling local deployment for better privacy and reduced latency.