APREX · EST. 2026
Microsoft is in San Francisco this week for its annual Build developer conference. The company has chosen a smaller, more intimate venue than the event has traditionally used — a move that signals this is as much about rebuilding trust as it is about showcasing technology.
According to The Verge, this is one of the most pivotal moments for Microsoft in recent memory, precisely because the company finds itself in the middle of a massive restructuring of its entire business around artificial intelligence.
New AI Models and Windows in the Spotlight
The conference agenda includes the unveiling of new AI models and Windows improvements, with a particular focus on developer mode. What will specifically be announced has not been confirmed in advance, but the company has invested heavily in recent months in platforms such as Microsoft Foundry — formerly known as Azure AI Foundry — which targets enterprise users looking to build, manage, and deploy AI solutions at scale.
Trust in Windows and GitHub is at a historic low — Build is Microsoft's chance to turn that around.
Microsoft Foundry offers integrated capabilities for evaluation, observability, governance, model execution, and agent orchestration, according to available product documentation. The strategy is to make AI a natural part of existing workflows rather than introducing it as a separate platform.
Trust and Sentiment Under Pressure
The conference comes at a time when developer sentiment toward AI tools is under strain. The Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025 shows that 84 percent of developers either use or plan to use AI tools in their work — up from 76 percent in 2024. Daily use of AI tools among professional developers reached 51 percent in 2025.
But the numbers behind that usage tell a more nuanced story.
Positive attitudes toward AI tools fell from over 70 percent in 2023 and 2024 to 60 percent in 2025. Trust in the correctness of AI-generated code dropped even more sharply — from 40 percent in prior years to 29 percent in 2025, according to the same survey. A full 45 percent of developers report that debugging code that is "almost right" but not quite is a significant time drain.
Microsoft vs. Google and AWS: Who Wins the Developers?
Microsoft is not alone in competing for developer loyalty. Google Cloud posted strong growth in Q1 2026 with a year-over-year increase of 63 percent, driven largely by AI workloads. Google Vertex AI and the Gemini models are highlighted as particularly attractive for Python-oriented teams and data-intensive organizations.
AWS, meanwhile, with services such as Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock, remains the preferred choice for organizations already running their infrastructure on the Amazon platform.
Microsoft claims a prominent position in generative AI, accounting for 45 percent of new cloud AI case studies and 62 percent of generative AI-focused projects, according to research data — much of it driven by its close partnership with OpenAI.
A Format That Reflects the Stakes
Microsoft's decision to choose a smaller venue for this year's Build can be read in several ways. A more contained setting gives the company the opportunity for closer dialogue with the core group of developers who are critical of the direction Windows and GitHub have taken. The Verge describes it as Microsoft's chance to "reconnect" with the developer community.
How the market and developer community respond to what is presented at Build 2026 will offer an early indication of whether Microsoft's AI push is hitting the right notes — or whether the trust deficit will continue to grow.
Sources: The Verge, Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, Docker Developer Survey 2023/2024