in 1986, he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan.

Laird has continued to research architectures of the mind and to develop and evolve the Soar architecture since his time at CMU. He organizes the annual Soar workshop and participates in the international Soar Research Group. In 1998, he co-founded Soar Technology, a company specializing in creating autonomous AI entities based on Soar; he currently serves on its board of directors. His research interests include cognitive architecture,