[pjc50]

My employer calls this "far field" audio, and has a number of hardware/firmware solutions: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs48lv41f/ (we're also very secretive, so I can't really discuss it beyond the public website)

The specific improvement Microsoft are touting is blind beamforming, without knowing where the microphones are located relative to each other. Regular beamforming is already in use in some products.