In-Process is out

[Quentin Christensen]

In-Process is out, featuring all the news on NVDA 2026.1 which is now available, as well as the recent NV Access all-hands, and a handy tip on copying the NVDA version number:

https://www.nvaccess.org/post/in-process-11th-may-2026/

Kind regards

Quentin
--

Quentin Christensen

Training and Support Manager

NV Access

www.nvaccess.org 

Celebrating 20 years of NVDA

Training: https://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

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[Fettah Pınar]

Hello Quentin,

First of all, thank you for the update.

In previous NVDA roadmaps, especially in the medium-term development plans, you mentioned that you were working on enabling Microsoft natural voices to be used with NVDA. However, I could not see any work related to this in the new roadmap.

Is there any progress regarding the AI-based Microsoft voices? Or will there be any development in the future? Why was this development removed from the roadmap?

Thank you.

11 May 2026 Pzt 10:02 tarihinde Quentin Christensen <que...@nvaccess.org> şunu yazdı:

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[Ed Marquette]

A question was raised about the "AI-based Microsoft voices." Are these the same as "HD Voices" I have read about from Microsoft?

This isn't a high priority. I'm fine with Microsoft Davie as it is today.

[FARHAN ISHRAK Fahim]

What happened to local AI model for ocr that you were supposed to introduced to nvda 2026.1? Aren't you supporting windows for arm devices?

[Quentin Christensen]

NVDA uses the "Windows OneCore" voices which first came with Windows 10 and still come with Windows 11.  These include Microsoft David, Mark and Zira for US English.  The full list is here:  Appendix A: Supported languages and voices - Microsoft Support

Narrator in Windows 11 now also has access to "Natural" voices.  These include Microsoft Andrew, Ava, Guy and Jenny.  These are the Azure HD voices listed here: Speech Studio - Voice Gallery

Microsoft have only made the natural HD voices available to Narrator.  As and when they open them up to third party use such as in NVDA, we will be sure to share it widely as we know many people are interested in these voice.  We have requested this from Microsoft, and we know many of our users have as well.  This is solely waiting on Microsoft to make available at this time.

Kind regards

Quentin

On Tue, May 12, 2026 at 12:38 AM Ed Marquette <marque...@gmail.com> wrote:

A question was raised about the "AI-based Microsoft voices." Are these the same as "HD Voices" I have read about from Microsoft?

This isn't a high priority. I'm fine with Microsoft Davie as it is today.

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[Quentin Christensen]

Great questions!

Ok, we know many of you are keen to have access to the Microsoft Natural Voices Narrator has access to.  Currently Microsoft have only made this available within Narrator, not to third party programs such as NVDA.  We have requested access to these for NVDA as we know many of our users are interested in them.  Removing it from the roadmap does not indicate we no longer want this, simply that it is not something we have any control over.  It is up to Microsoft to make these voices available.  I actually don't think it would be a lot of work technically to get them working in NVDA once Microsoft did open it up, so it wouldn't necessarily be a large, long term project technically once that happened.

And Farhan, while we did get the local AI model working for image description, all of the feedback we got from those who tested it was that it was very poor quality and worse, not accurate.  It was also a large download and made NVDA slower to startup.  We are still working on improving this and hope to bring it back, but it definitely wasn't ready for NVDA 2026.1.  It is still on the roadmap, however has been moved to longer term, as we recognise it will take more work to bring something which is local, on-device, as well as being functional and accurate.  For now, there are a number of add-ons which provide generally off-device AI image description and do this quite accurately.

And Windows for ARM, yes we still support this, however only 64-bit ARM on Windows 11.  If you have an ARM device, you will need to be running Windows 11 rather than Windows 10 - although I believe most ARM devices SHOULD be able to update to Windows 11, though some older ones may not (in that case, you will need to stay on NVDA 2025.3.3).

Kind regards

Quentin

On Tue, May 12, 2026 at 3:35 AM FARHAN ISHRAK Fahim <fahim.n...@gmail.com> wrote:

What happened to local AI model for ocr that you were supposed to introduced to nvda 2026.1? Aren't you supporting windows for arm devices?

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[Sean Randall]

I can confirm that the technical feasibility of using these voices with NVDA is minimal. It would be against Microsoft's terms for NVAccess to host such an addon at this time, of course, but the groundwork is promising for when the time comes, as it were. I'll say no more about it here.  

Thanks

Sean

On 12 May 2026, at 02:22, Quentin Christensen <que...@nvaccess.org> wrote:



Great questions!

Ok, we know many of you are keen to have access to the Microsoft Natural Voices Narrator has access to.  Currently Microsoft have only made this available within Narrator, not to third party programs such as NVDA.  We have requested access to these for NVDA as we know many of our users are interested in them.  Removing it from the roadmap does not indicate we no longer want this, simply that it is not something we have any control over.  It is up to Microsoft to make these voices available.  I actually don't think it would be a lot of work technically to get them working in NVDA once Microsoft did open it up, so it wouldn't necessarily be a large, long term project technically once that happened.

And Farhan, while we did get the local AI model working for image description, all of the feedback we got from those who tested it was that it was very poor quality and worse, not accurate.  It was also a large download and made NVDA slower to startup.  We are still working on improving this and hope to bring it back, but it definitely wasn't ready for NVDA 2026.1.  It is still on the roadmap, however has been moved to longer term, as we recognise it will take more work to bring something which is local, on-device, as well as being functional and accurate.  For now, there are a number of add-ons which provide generally off-device AI image description and do this quite accurately.

And Windows for ARM, yes we still support this, however only 64-bit ARM on Windows 11.  If you have an ARM device, you will need to be running Windows 11 rather than Windows 10 - although I believe most ARM devices SHOULD be able to update to Windows 11, though some older ones may not (in that case, you will need to stay on NVDA 2025.3.3).

Kind regards

Quentin

On Tue, May 12, 2026 at 3:35 AM FARHAN ISHRAK Fahim <fahim.n...@gmail.com> wrote:

What happened to local AI model for ocr that you were supposed to introduced to nvda 2026.1? Aren't you supporting windows for arm devices?

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Quentin Christensen

Training and Support Manager

NV Access

www.nvaccess.org 

Celebrating 20 years of NVDA

<image.png>

Training: https://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

Certification: https://certification.nvaccess.org/

Blog, releases & news by email: https://nvaccess.org/newsletter

User group: https://nvaccess.org/nvda-users

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<image.png>

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