Microsoft’s patch Tuesdays are about to get bigger

The company will be using AI more heavily in its security updates process.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Windows 11 updates could soon include fixes for more security issues at once. Microsoft said in a blog post on Thursday that it’s now using AI to “identify potential issues earlier,” which means “customers will see a higher volume of security updates included in each security release.”

Hackers, even amateurs, have increasingly been using AI to quickly exploit security weaknesses over the past several months. Security researchers are also using AI to find issues faster, leading to more frequent high-severity vulnerabilities, like the “Copy Fail” exploit that impacted nearly every Linux distribution in May. Similarly, when Anthropic announced its Claude Mythos model earlier this year, it claimed that Mythos had already found high-severity vulnerabilities in “every major operating system.”

Microsoft says it’s updating its Secure Development Lifecycle to make sure it “explicitly accounts for potential AI-enabled attack techniques and exploit paths.” It’s also making investments to “ensure that we are not compromising update quality as we gain speed,” including integrating AI more throughout its security updates process. Additionally, Microsoft says it’s “investing in new technology including Windows-specific tools and agentic harnesses” that will help generate and validate security fixes with AI, while “keeping humans in the loop when it comes to code review.”

Microsoft emphasized that while AI will now be more involved in identifying and resolving security issues, developers will still verify those findings and “make risk-based decisions” about updates.