Microsoft to close The Garage innovation platform

Microsoft is shutting down The Garage, its internal creative incubation platform, after 17 years of operation. The initiative, which originated in 2009 within the Office Labs team at the Redmond campus, served as a centralized hub for prototype development, hardware fabrication, and cross-departmental collaboration.

Under the program, employees were permitted to work on creative projects during work hours with approval from managers. The Garage also acted as a primary organizational platform for Microsoft’s global hackathons. Notable products incubated through the program include the AI-driven Seeing AI application for the visually impaired.

Microsoft stated that the company will no longer operate The Garage as a centralized function. Instead, experimentation, learning, and cross-team collaboration will be integrated into the daily workflows of individual business teams, aided by artificial intelligence. While the public Garage website has been removed and some physical maker spaces are closing, the company is currently reimagining the format of its annual global hackathon.