š Microsoft announced GPT-6 Astra in Microsoft Foundry on 3 September 2026 and Microsoft just added EU Data Zone support for Astra a few days ago š„³
Astra’s selling point is computer use. It interprets what is on screen and interacts with approved interfaces, including workflows that never had a decent API. Updating records, navigating development tools, testing software, assembling results into a report. Microsoft’s own line is “Capability this direct demands containment”, which is unusually blunt for a launch post, and I am glad somebody wrote it down!
What they mean by containment is scoped credentials, approved resources, human checkpoints for consequential actions and activity records you can go back and read. None of that is new thinking. It is ordinary identity and access work, and it is the bit where some evangelists eyes start to drift off.
Pricing is where things get spicy: In Foundry, running a workload of 10 million input and 2 million output tokens will cost $140.00 on GPT-6 Astra compared to $56.00 on GPT-5.6 Sol
There are legacy systems out there that are crying out for automation but lack the APIs. Could Astra bridge the gap?
