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Builders & open source

Adam Fourney

Senior Principal Researcher, Human-AI eXperiences (HAX) group, AI Frontiers, Microsoft

Adam Fourney is a Senior Principal Researcher in the Human-AI eXperiences (HAX) group at Microsoft Research, where Fourney builds and studies AI agents and how they collaborate with people. Fourney is the listed author of MarkItDown, Microsoft's open-source Python utility for converting files to Markdown for use with language models, and works on AutoGen, Magentic-One and Magentic-UI. Fourney is the first author of the Magentic-One paper (2024) and of Microsoft Research's January 2025 post introducing AutoGen v0.4.123456

At a glance

Current role
Senior Principal Researcher, Human-AI eXperiences (HAX) group, AI Frontiers
Company
Microsoft
Sector
Company
Education
Waterloo
Work listed
3
Sources cited
7
Profile reviewed

Career

Fourney earned master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Waterloo before joining Microsoft. Fourney previously worked on web search, intelligent assistants and other information systems, studying the roles they play in supporting people's tasks. Fourney now works in the Human-AI eXperiences group at Microsoft Research AI Frontiers on AI agents and how they work alongside people.12

Agents and tools

Fourney is first author of the November 2024 Magentic-One paper, which describes a multi-agent system for complex tasks, and first-listed author of the January 2025 Microsoft Research post on AutoGen v0.4, a redesign of the AutoGen agent framework for scale, extensibility and robustness. Fourney's site also lists Magentic-UI, an experimental human-centered web agent.561

MarkItDown, whose package metadata names Fourney as author, was first published to PyPI in November 2024 and continues to receive releases in 2026. Its README describes support for converting PDF, PowerPoint, Word, Excel and image files, among others, to Markdown.374

Work and contributions

  • MarkItDown Open-source code

    Listed as the author in the markitdown package's pyproject.toml; the utility converts PDF, PowerPoint, Word, Excel and other files into Markdown for language-model pipelines.342

  • AutoGen Open-source code

    Lists AutoGen among current projects and was first-listed author of Microsoft Research's January 2025 post introducing AutoGen v0.4.216

  • Magentic-One Published research

    First author of the paper describing Magentic-One, a generalist multi-agent system for solving complex tasks.5

Timeline

  1. Posted the Magentic-One paper on a generalist multi-agent system as first author.5
  2. MarkItDown's first package release was published to PyPI.7
  3. Published Microsoft Research's introduction of AutoGen v0.4 as first-listed author.6
  4. MarkItDown version 0.1.9 was published to PyPI.7

Where they work

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References

7 sources · profile reviewed Oct 22, 2026 · data updated Oct 22, 2026

  1. Adam Fourney — homepageAdam Fourney · Official page · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  2. Adam Fourney at Microsoft ResearchMicrosoft Research · Official page · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  3. microsoft/markitdown packages/markitdown/pyproject.toml (authors)Microsoft (GitHub repository) · Repository · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  4. microsoft/markitdown READMEMicrosoft (GitHub repository) · Repository · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  5. Magentic-One: A Generalist Multi-Agent System for Solving Complex Tasks (arXiv 2411.04468)arXiv · Paper · published Nov 7, 2024 · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  6. AutoGen v0.4: Reimagining the foundation of agentic AI for scale, extensibility, and robustness — Microsoft Research blogMicrosoft Research · Announcement · published Jan 14, 2025 · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  7. markitdown on PyPI (release history)Python Package Index · Release notes · accessed Oct 22, 2026