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?