Magnetic-UI is a new, open-source tool from Microsoft that lets people easily guide and watch AI agents as they work, even if they aren’t engineers. Unlike older AI systems that hide their thinking, Magnetic-UI shows every step in real time and lets users step in or change the plan whenever they want. This see-through approach helps humans and AI work together better and finish more tasks. Teams in shopping and healthcare are already using it to handle tricky online jobs safely and quickly. You can try Magnetic-UI for free on GitHub or through Microsoft’s website.
What is Magnetic-UI and how does it improve human interaction with AI agents?
Magnetic-UI is an open-source agent framework from Microsoft that enables non-engineers to steer AI agents in real time with full transparency. Users can co-plan tasks, intervene naturally at any step, and see every reasoning process, resulting in up to 71% higher task completion rates.
In the first 90 days since its May 2025 unveiling, *Magnetic-UI * has moved from Microsoft’s research labs to the top of GitHub’s trending list, accumulating over 2 300 stars and 430 forks. That rapid uptake is no accident: the framework is the first open-source agent stack that lets non-engineers steer AI agents in real time while watching every reasoning step unfold in an explainer panel.
What makes Magnetic-UI different
Traditional agents execute a task plan and surface results after the fact. Magnetic-UI flips the sequence:
| Traditional agent | Magnetic-UI |
|---|---|
| Plan → act → reveal | Plan → reveal → co-act |
| Black-box execution | Real-time transparency panel shows next action, confidence score, and fallback options |
| Outcome-only feedback | Natural-language intervention at any step |
The result, according to Microsoft’s internal benchmark, is a 71 % jump in task-completion rate when a human offers just-in-time nudges (30.3 % autonomous vs 51.9 % with lightweight human feedback) source.
Four interaction primitives baked into the UI
- Co-planning : users edit the agent’s itinerary before the browser even opens.
- Co-tasking : agent and human can pass control back-and-forth like a two-player game.
- Action Guards: high-risk clicks (checkout, password reset) pause for explicit consent.
- Plan Learning: approved workflows are cached in a “plan gallery” and reused later, cutting repeat-task time by up to 3×.
Early adopters are already stretching the framework
- Pilot e-commerce teams are testing Magnetic-UI to watch agents scrape competitor pricing, alert on stock-outs, and auto-apply coupons without ever touching the keyboard.
- Healthcare analysts use the transparency panel to verify each web source before the agent compiles a patient-literature digest.
Despite the buzz, large-scale production deployments remain rare; most organizations are still in sandbox or proof-of-concept mode, mirroring the broader industry caution around agentic autonomy source.
How to try it today
The entire stack is MIT-licensed and lives on GitHub. Microsoft also hosts a no-install research preview on Azure AI Foundry Labs, so teams can start co-authoring web tasks within minutes.
What exactly is Magnetic-UI and how does it differ from traditional AI agent frameworks?
Magnetic-UI is a human-centered web agent framework introduced by Microsoft in 2025 that turns AI agents into transparent, interactive collaborators rather than autonomous black boxes. Unlike traditional frameworks where AI operates independently, Magnetic-UI enables real-time human guidance through four core mechanisms:
- Co-planning – Users can view and modify AI plans before execution
- Co-tasking – Humans and AI work together on tasks with dynamic responsibility sharing
- Action Guards – Critical actions require explicit user approval
- Plan Learning – AI learns from human interventions to improve future performance
The key difference is transparency: while typical AI agents make decisions invisibly, Magnetic-UI provides a live transparency panel showing the agent’s reasoning, current actions, and proposed steps at every moment.
How does the system ensure user control and prevent unwanted AI actions?
Through its explicit user control architecture, Magnetic-UI prevents unwanted actions using permission-driven agency. When the system identifies critical or irreversible actions (like financial transactions or data submissions), it automatically triggers:
- Explicit approval prompts before execution
- Pause and review checkpoints
- Natural language feedback channels for course correction
- Full manual override capability at any point
This approach has shown measurable improvement in Microsoft’s research – task completion rates increased from 30.3% (autonomous AI) to 51.9% when humans provided lightweight feedback through Magnetic-UI’s interface.
What types of real-world tasks is Magnetic-UI designed to handle?
Based on Microsoft’s demonstrations, Magnetic-UI excels at complex, multi-step web workflows that traditionally require human oversight:
- Intelligent shopping assistance – browsing competitor sites, price tracking, checkout with user approval
- Professional workflow automation – compiling reports from multiple web tools
- Personalized web navigation – remembering preferred sites, login workflows, form pre-filling
- Sensitive digital transactions – financial operations with mandatory consent checkpoints
The system stores successful multi-step plans in a “plan gallery”, allowing 3x faster execution for repeated tasks by retrieving and adapting previous solutions rather than generating new plans from scratch.
How can developers and organizations start using Magnetic-UI today?
Microsoft has made Magnetic-UI immediately accessible through multiple channels:
- Open-source availability – Full source code under MIT license on GitHub
- Azure AI Foundry Labs – Hosted research preview for testing without local setup
- July 2025 update (v0.4) – Introduced integrated AutoGen ecosystem for streamlined development
- Community contributions – Active GitHub repository accepting pull requests and feature suggestions
Early adopters are primarily using it for pilot programs and research experimentation rather than full production deployment, given its experimental status.
What impact is Magnetic-UI having on responsible AI development standards?
Industry experts view Magnetic-UI as a benchmark for responsible AI deployment, particularly in:
- Transparency standards – Real-time reasoning visualization sets new expectations
- User empowerment – Demonstrates practical implementation of human-in-the-loop AI
- Trust building – Collaborative approach addresses AI autonomy concerns
- Industry influence – Being adopted as a model for sensitive domains like healthcare and finance
The framework’s open-source nature enables broad community scrutiny and iterative improvement, accelerating adoption of ethical AI standards across industries while maintaining practical functionality for complex web-based tasks.
