Microsoft Decision-1: 9B Qwen Model Launch Explained

Microsoft launched its Decision-1 model on October 9, 2026, built on Alibaba’s Qwen3.5-9B. This model is designed to score fixed answer options in a single forward pass, providing probabilities rather than generating text, summaries, or emails. Microsoft claims Decision-1 runs 4.5 times faster than Quyet-1.0-Large and 35 times faster than GPT-6 Sol, with approximately 35x lower P50 latency. It supports text inputs up to 32,000 tokens and is available via Microsoft Foundry and OpenRouter.

Unlike general-purpose models, Microsoft's Decision-1 focuses on scoring fixed options, claiming 35 times lower P50 latency than GPT-6 Sol for this specific task.