Here are my raw, fresh from my dev box notes I made while watching the keynote/sessions at Microsoft’s Build 2026 event

Keynote #1

Frontier Intelligence Ecosystem

• Framed as an opportunity for developers - not “one bit of tech,” but a whole stack.
• Focus areas:
  • Security & Observability
  • Developer Tools
  • Agent Runtime
  • Models + Context + Tools
  • Infrastructure

They showed an “AI layer” sitting between traditional dev tools and infrastructure - basically AI woven into the whole stack.

Infrastructure

Edge / Cloud

• “Is Windows the Edge?” - implied heavily.
• “Unmetered intelligence on every desk and in every home” - sounds familiar.
• Expanding Windows AI APIs to more PCs: CPU, GPU, NPU.
• On‑device AI for consumption and execution.
• New in‑box models:
  • Aion 1.0 Instruct (reasoning)
  • Aion 1.0 Plan (planning)

Silicon partners

• Qualcomm did some Snapdragon announcements - missed most of it.
• Nvidia: unified SoC story. Surface Ultra is the first device.
• Surface RTX Spark Dev Box - looks great, probably priced for Anthropic’s CEO and not the rest of us.

Windows everywhere

• Windows on the DGS station.
• Big push for Windows again - honestly refreshing.

Developer experience

• “Distraction‑free environment.”
• Linux coreutils on Windows.
• WSL containers on Windows - finally.
• Public repo of Windows Developer Config - worth checking out.
• “Dev Drive” - not sure if this is new or renamed.
• File Explorer with Git integration.
• Lots of tools/scripts aimed at bringing devs from macOS/Linux to Windows. Will it work? Unsure.

Hold for applause.

Microsoft positioning

• Very keen to show they’re not the “AI bad guy.”
• Messaging around not raising electricity prices, not draining lakes, and creating jobs.
• Azure expanding massively.
• Maia 200 datacentre processor, Cobalt 200 - both look impressive.
• “AI Fabric” - global‑scale, lots of developer tooling, huge spend… but still unclear what the endgame is.

Also: Jensen towering over Satya on stage - flashbacks to the “big brother” moment from the late 90s.

Project Solara

• Ecosystem of devices.
• Not convinced the general public wants “AI in all my devices, everywhere.”
• Dropped off here for a bit.

Models

• “Humanist superintelligence” - serve people, not replace them. (Pretty sure he said the opposite 18 months ago.)
• Model lineup:
  • MAI Image 2.5
  • MAI Image 2.5 Flash
  • AI Transcribe 1.5
  • MAI Thinking
  • MAI Voice 2
  • MAI Voice 2 Flash
  • MAI Code 1 Flash
• All available on Foundry.
• 43 languages supported.

Microsoft Discovery - Majorana 3 - nice to see quantum computing pop up again.

Tiny bit wild there was no mention of C#, .NET, TypeScript, Visual Studio Code.
No real code on show either for a developer conference. A sign of the times?

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Breakouts & Sessions

Copilot Runtime & Agent Frameworks

Session: Day 1 Keynote + “Building Agents with the Copilot Runtime” breakout

• Big push on “agents everywhere” - but everyone still seems to define “agent” differently.
• Microsoft’s angle: agents as first‑class runtime citizens inside Windows, Azure, and Edge.
• New Copilot Runtime Extensions - basically plugins with more guardrails.
• “Your app is the agent” - not sure how that plays with existing app models.
• Offline agent execution with Aion models - actually useful.

Developer Tools

Session: “GitHub Copilot Workspace: What’s New” theatre session

• VS Code barely mentioned - surreal.
• Copilot Workspace updates:
  • Full repo restructuring in one go.
  • More “end‑to‑end” project generation.
  • Looks powerful but also terrifying for juniors.
• AI‑native debugging:
  • Traces your code + model calls together.
  • Could be huge.
  • Could also be Clippy‑for‑stacktraces.

Azure AI Fabric

Session: “Azure AI Fabric Deep Dive” breakout

• Fabric = the “everything bus” for models, data, agents.
• Pitched as the control plane for distributed AI apps.
• “Planet‑scale inference routing” - sounds expensive.
• New “burstable inference” SKUs - pay only when your agent wakes up.
  • Indie devs will care about this.

Windows AI Shell

Session: “Windows AI Experiences” breakout

• They didn’t call it this, but it’s basically the AI shell now.
• Windows now has:
  • AI search
  • AI window management
  • AI settings
  • AI everything
• OS feels like a thin wrapper around the Copilot layer.
• Power users may riot.

Hardware

Session: “Windows on ARM Developer Hardware” + partner talks

• Surface Ultra dev kits ship with a “Model Cache” - a literal SSD for models.
• Snapdragon X Elite variants with higher NPU throughput “later this year”.
• Nvidia teased a “developer‑first GPU SKU” - no details, crowd perked up.

Enterprise AI

Session: “Responsible AI for Agents” breakout

• New compliance layer logs every agent tool call.
  • Good for audits, bad for latency?
• “Responsible Actions Framework” - stops agents doing stupid things.
  • Demo: agent refused to delete a production DB.
  • Sensible, but also: who asked it to delete prod?

Misc / Observations

Session: General vibe across the whole event

• Keynote pacing was odd - big claims, few demos.
• The vibe: AI is the platform now. Everything else orbits it.
• Still surreal how little code was shown.
• The shift from “frameworks & languages” to “models & runtimes” is complete.
• Satya’s energy: “We’re doing this whether you like it or not.”