June
When AI is upending how applications are built and even non-developers can vibe code, using plain language to collaborate with AI, we have to ask: What does it mean to be a developer today?
Earlier this month, more than 2,600 developers, software engineers, data scientists, IT professionals and journalists arrived in San Francisco to find answers to that question at Microsoft Build, our annual developer conference. Another 100,000 participated virtually from around the world.
Not only did they find answers, they found a host of new tools to build, dream and create.
So much news came out of Build that we published a live blog during the event so that you could – literally – keep up with the conversation. We encourage you to check out the live blog but for the TLDR version, here are three key themes Kyle Daigle, COO of GitHub and CMO of Developer for Microsoft, outlined in his post on The Official Microsoft Blog:
“First, intelligence that’s truly yours. With the Microsoft Agent Platform powered by your context and intelligence from Microsoft IQ, you can build your agent in GitHub, deploy it to Microsoft Foundry and optimize it automatically with models best suited for the job.
“Ground it in your intelligence and the world’s knowledge, then access it via Microsoft Teams, M365 or anywhere your team works. Designed to reduce the need to make tradeoffs between context and governance, security and speed, or models and tools.
“Second, the full stack built your way. You should be able to build the way you want to build, with the tools, models and workflows you choose, and make it real. This expands beyond the agent platform across the stack. Silicon to OS to developer tools to cloud – and that starts with Windows.
“Not Windows for 'Windows developers.' Windows for developers, period. We’re bringing a new developer configuration that gives you more flexibility, a frictionless intelligent shell and terminal experience, local sandboxing for agents, new Windows Subsystem for Linux capabilities and powerful options to do it on your local machine.
“Third is what comes next, where agentic systems move from code to human progress, amplifying what scientists and researchers can achieve. New frontiers in science and computing that start with the same developer platform underneath.
“Together, developers get a multi-model ecosystem, from your laptop to the cloud, so you can build the frontier without giving up the control and craft that truly makes the work yours.”
And as always, Daigle reminds us, it starts with the developer.
Which brings us to the developers just starting out!
Each year, student founders compete to find solutions to global problems at the Imagine Cup World Championship, and the winner is announced at Microsoft Build.
This year, the Cup went to Patrick Brown from the University of Oxford. His CopyFlag uses Azure-powered AI models to detect copied and AI-modified content across the internet, helping creators identify infringement faster and automate takedowns at scale.
Brown’s startup received $150,000 as well as a mentorship session with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella.
Ask an AI tool for a picture of “someone at work,” and you’ll often get a person at a desk, in front of a computer, maybe holding a coffee cup. When people with disabilities appear at all, the images sometimes have been jarringly wrong: amputees with extra limbs, for example.
The problem isn’t intent; it’s absence. AI systems can only learn from the data they’re trained on.
Now more communities – including the estimated 1.3 billion people living with disabilities – are starting to bring their collective voice to help define representation, evaluate how AI systems perform and shape how those systems are developed and used.
Kilimanjaro Blind Trust Africa in Nairobi, for one, is partnering with Microsoft to curate image datasets of people with vision disabilities. They include well-dressed businesspeople and active farmers and athletes instead of beggars sitting on street corners.
Another group, global prosthetics manufacturer Ottobock, enlisted Microsoft’s help to collect images of amputees participating in daily activities from parenting to cooking. Once it’s complete, the organization plans to publish the library on an open-source platform, making it available to anyone working with AI.
Porsche Cup Brasil is one of the world’s largest one‑make racing series, where identical Porsche 911 GT3s compete across nine events annually. Racing the same cars means equal opportunity for every driver.
This 2026 season, Porsche Cup Brasil is deploying a new AI-powered crash analysis system built on Microsoft technology to get cars back on the track faster. After a crash, engineers and AI agents work side by side to assess damage and determine the parts needed for repairs. Early results show a sharp drop in assessment time, enabling teams to start repairs sooner and cut overall turnaround time by roughly half.
“Time is the most valuable asset for us,” notes Enzo Morrone, chief operations officer of Porsche Cup Brasil.
That’s not all. Porsche Cup Brasil is also using real-time telemetry to track vehicle behavior during races. Engineers can now detect when a car moves outside expected parameters and immediately call the driver into the pits.
Down in Australia, nonprofit Everything Suarve (ESuarve) is winning accolades for helping at-risk youth get their lives in order. Since 2020, it has helped some 350 young people, mostly male, with an average age of 17. They are referred by police, by social workers – and by each other.
Participants go through a 10-week course at ESuarve’s facility near Gold Coast, Queensland and emerge with a certificate in construction. They also learn mental health management, including breathing techniques that help regulate emotions. The result is a recidivism rate of just 10 percent.
As the number of clients grows, ESuarve is turning to Microsoft technology to handle paperwork. ESuarve’s workflows, from managing referrals to tracking progress and securing funding, are now automated using Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft Power Automate.
The result, says ESuarve founder Joseph Te Puni-Fromont, is “we have more time to go put back into the young people.”
As Pride rolled around again this month, members of the LGBTQIA+ community at Microsoft talked about what it means to live openly, visibly and fully – every day.
For some, it’s about how people show up for each other at the office. “I see people use gender-neutral language every day at work, and it makes belonging feel more natural,” says Chris.
For others, it’s about communities showing up with care. “My neighbor asked if my wife and I felt comfortable on our block. It made me feel like someone was watching out for us,” says Teresa.
And for some, it’s about finally bringing their full selves to work. Says Gabriela, “Joining a team where I can talk about my wife without hesitation makes me feel truly welcomed and safe.”
Remember 1,200 words ago when we said it all starts with developers? What we meant by that is that technology starts with people. It is made by people for people. People with disabilities, people who race cars, young people who need help, people in the LGBTQIA+ community who want to live fully and openly. It’s for people that we build.
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Cutting crash assessment time by half in Porsche racing proves AI delivers tangible operational value.
Innovation thrives in cultures built on collaboration, curiosity, and continuous learning.
innovative
Inclusive AI systems and IP protection tooling are genuinely different technical problems bundled under one narrative, since the former deals with representation in training data and evaluation, the latter with provenance and attribution at inference time. Worth separating which specific tools from Build address each, since the solutions rarely transfer.
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