Microsoft’s New ‘Fara-7B’ AI Agent Rivals GPT-4o, Runs Locally on Your PC

Microsoft has released Fara-7B, a compact 7-billion parameter AI agent that can control computers using visual screenshots rather than code, performing tasks like clicking, typing, and scrolling directly on PCs. Despite its small size, the model achieved 73.5% on the WebVoyager benchmark, surpassing GPT-4o's 65.1% performance while running locally to protect user privacy and reduce latency. The system includes safety measures that pause before sensitive actions and is now available to developers through Hugging Face.