Microsoft just announced AI Dev Days 2025 on the official Microsoft Developer Blog, and this virtual event is shaping up to be a must‑attend capstone for anyone serious about building with AI across Azure, GitHub, and the Microsoft developer stack. The two‑day online conference runs December 10–11, 2025, is completely free, streamed on YouTube, and blends the biggest announcements from Microsoft Ignite, GitHub Universe, and .NET Conf into one focused experience for developers.
What is AI Dev Days?
AI Dev Days is a two‑day virtual event designed to consolidate Microsoft’s major AI announcements and hands‑on learning into a single, developer‑friendly package. It pulls together news, demos, and training around AI agents, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), GitHub Copilot, Azure AI Foundry, and the latest tooling in VS Code and Visual Studio. Whether you care about modernizing legacy apps, building intelligent agents, or just staying on top of the rapidly evolving AI stack, this event is built as an end‑of‑year “AI reset” to help you hit the ground running in 2026.
The event targets a wide range of roles: app developers, emerging AI devs, DevOps engineers, technical decision makers, startup builders, and anyone watching the intersection of productivity tooling and AI. With over a dozen hours of live and on‑demand content, more than 15 technical sessions, and two hands‑on workshops, the agenda is dense enough to offer deep technical value without overwhelming you with scattered announcements.
Event schedule and logistics
AI Dev Days takes place December 10–11, 2025, and is fully virtual, streamed live on YouTube so you can join from anywhere. Day 1 kicks off at 9:00 AM Pacific Time, with Day 2 starting an hour earlier at 8:00 AM Pacific Time. Every session is free to watch live, and Microsoft will provide recordings on‑demand afterwards, so you can catch up on anything you miss or rewatch key technical segments.
The format blends traditional keynotes with focused technical sessions and live, guided workshops. Each day ends with a free hands‑on lab that walks you through real‑world scenarios using Azure AI Foundry, GitHub Copilot, MCP, and modern agent tooling. All source code and workshop materials are promised to be available on GitHub, making it easy to revisit the content later or adapt samples to your own projects.
Day 1: Building AI applications
Day 1 centers on building AI‑powered applications with Azure and GitHub, with a heavy focus on agents and Microsoft’s evolving AI platform story. The day opens with a keynote from Microsoft CoreAI Executive Vice President Jay Parikh alongside Principal Community Team PM Lead James Montemagno, setting the stage for where Microsoft sees AI development heading over the next year. From there, the agenda dives into how developers can move beyond single‑prompt chat experiences into systems that orchestrate agents, workflows, and real‑world operations.
Several sessions explore Microsoft Foundry as the backbone for modern AI apps. You’ll see how to build and manage AI agents using a modular “agent factory” approach, unifying models, data, and tools with enterprise‑grade observability and security. Other sessions go deep into multi‑agent orchestration using the Microsoft Foundry Agent Framework, combining technologies like Semantic Kernel and AutoGen, shared state, human‑in‑the‑loop review, and telemetry via OpenTelemetry, MCP toolchains, and activity protocols.
Agentic workflows, MCP, and Windows
A key theme on Day 1 is the rise of “agentic” workflows and the Model Context Protocol as a standard way for AI agents to safely access tools and services. Sessions dedicated to MCP explain how the protocol lets agents use external capabilities in a structured, secure way, spanning Windows, Microsoft Foundry, GitHub, and VS Code. For Windows developers, there is specific content on building MCP servers, packaging them correctly, integrating them into the MCP Registry, and wiring agents to automate tasks across the OS using built‑in or custom MCP endpoints.
This focus on MCP matters because it moves AI coding from ad‑hoc prompt engineering to well‑defined, testable integrations. Instead of writing monolithic agents, you assemble agent systems that can call MCP‑exposed tools for file operations, databases, or external APIs, all under consistent standards. For enterprises, that translates to better governance, more predictable behavior, and clearer observability across agent actions.
Aspire, Azure, and Copilot‑driven DevOps
Day 1 also highlights how Microsoft is tying AI into app orchestration and DevOps. A dedicated session on Aspire for AI applications demonstrates how to orchestrate front ends, APIs, containers, and databases without rewriting everything from scratch, while giving developers visibility into token usage and application flow. This is particularly relevant for teams adding AI to existing systems where observability and cost tracking are critical.
Another major segment focuses on using GitHub Copilot and specialized agents to streamline the path from idea to operations on Azure. You’ll see how a combination of “coding,” “app modernization,” and “cloud architecture” agents can accelerate planning, coding, deployment, and diagnostics. Add in specialized SRE and testing agents, and you get an end‑to‑end AI‑assisted DevOps pipeline, where agents help identify issues, propose fixes, and even automate parts of production operations.
From VS Code to Azure: building agents
For developers who live in VS Code, AI Dev Days lines up multiple sessions that turn the editor into an AI agent workbench. One session walks through building and deploying an AI agent using the latest AI Toolkit and GitHub Copilot features inside VS Code. The workflow starts with a local prototype: Copilot connecting to an MCP server, recommending models, opening a playground, instrumenting code for tracing, and wiring up telemetry to inspect traces.
The story continues by deploying that agent to Azure, giving you a repeatable local‑to‑cloud lifecycle. This is important if you want to build serious production AI services rather than toy demos. Another session focuses on integrating OpenAI and Anthropic models via Microsoft Foundry, showing how to blend best‑in‑class models into enterprise workflows with governance and observability built in.
Day 1 hands‑on: Build a pizza‑ordering agent
To make all of this concrete, Day 1 ends with a live hands‑on workshop where you build a pizza ordering agent using Azure AI Foundry and MCP. It is designed as a real‑world example you can adapt to your own scenarios—think support bots, ordering assistants, or internal automation agents. The workshop emphasizes practical steps: integrating MCP tools, handling user flows, and wiring everything up in Azure.
Microsoft strongly recommends having your Azure account set up ahead of the workshop so you can follow along in real time. Because the materials and source code are shared on GitHub, you can continue expanding the agent afterward, turning the workshop into the starting point for deeper experimentation or a production pilot inside your organization.
Day 2: Developer productivity with AI
If Day 1 is about building AI systems, Day 2 is about making developers dramatically more productive with AI‑powered tools. The day opens with GitHub VP of Developer Relations Martin Woodward, who will talk about how GitHub and VS Code are changing the daily developer experience. From there, the sessions dive into GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio, VS Code, and the broader agent ecosystem that now lives inside your terminal and editor.
One of the headline sessions walks through the latest VS Code 1.07 release, highlighting new capabilities and improvements that tie closely into AI workflows. Other talks cover the GitHub Copilot CLI, which effectively turns your terminal into an AI‑aware environment, letting you ask for commands, generate scripts, and automate repetitive shell tasks. The schedule even includes a deep‑dive session specifically on scripting the Copilot CLI to offload more of your day‑to‑day work.
Agents in VS Code and Visual Studio 2026
A significant portion of Day 2 explores what Microsoft calls a “unified agent experience” across local, background, and cloud agents in VS Code. New features make it possible to manage fleets of agents that can run on your machine or in the cloud, each focused on different jobs like refactoring, documentation, testing, or architecture. Sessions show you how to create and leverage custom agents tailored to your team’s workflow, then orchestrate them inside the editor.
Visual Studio 2026 also takes center stage as Microsoft’s “intelligent development environment.” A dedicated session goes beyond basic code generation and showcases how AI agents embedded in Visual Studio can help debug, profile, and optimize applications. The idea is to shift from Copilot as a simple code completer to a set of specialized assistants that understand your solution, help find performance bottlenecks, and guide complex refactors.
MCP, planning, and spec‑driven development
Day 2 continues the MCP story by showing how the full specification can be used to support everyday development tasks. Sessions explain how to plug MCP servers into VS Code to provide standardized tools for file operations, database access, or third‑party services, all accessible through AI agents. This lets you build custom “toolboxes” your agents can call, while still staying within an open, documented protocol.
Another notable theme is structured planning and specification. Talks on tools like Spec Kit and “Plan Mode” focus on moving away from “vibe coding” to spec‑driven development. Instead of throwing prompts at Copilot and hoping for the best, you define scenarios, constraints, and expected outcomes, then let AI help generate implementation details. There are also sessions on using multi‑agent workflows in the design process and on attacking tech debt with Copilot Cloud Agents, which can help modernize legacy codebases at scale.
Day 2 hands‑on: Customize GitHub Copilot
Day 2 wraps up with a hands‑on workshop called “GitHub Copilot Customized – Shaping Copilot for Your Workflow.” This lab is all about turning Copilot from a generic helper into something tuned to the way you and your team work. Expect guidance on configuring prompts, setting up policies, integrating with your preferred stack, and aligning Copilot’s behavior with your coding standards and processes.
To get the most from this workshop, Microsoft recommends having a GitHub Copilot account ready to go. The good news is that Copilot is available with a free signup, and like the Day 1 workshop, all content and examples will be available afterward so you can continue iterating on your setup once the event is over.
Who should attend and why it matters
AI Dev Days is explicitly built for developers and technical leaders who want to get hands‑on with Microsoft’s AI platform rather than just hear high‑level strategy. If you are building apps on Azure, experimenting with AI agents, modernizing legacy systems, or trying to standardize AI usage across your organization, the combination of keynotes, deep‑dive sessions, and workshops offers a focused, practical learning path.
Beyond the content itself, the event offers live Q&A with Microsoft and GitHub experts as well as industry leaders like Jay Parikh, Amanda Silver, Sarah Bird, Martin Woodward, Maria Naggaga, and others. That access is valuable if you want to ask detailed questions, validate your architecture plans, or better understand where Microsoft is investing in 2026 and beyond. With sessions recorded and available on demand, you can also share key talks with your team afterward.
Global AI Dev Days and regional editions
If the main December 10–11 dates do not fit your schedule or time zone, Microsoft is also rolling out a series of global AI Dev Days events. There is a China‑focused edition scheduled for December 16–17, 2025, with localized content in Simplified Chinese and the same general mix of sessions and hands‑on workshops tailored for that audience. Beyond that, Microsoft plans additional local‑language workshops in January 2026 across Latin America, EMEA, APAC, and the Greater China Region.
These regional events reinforce Microsoft’s strategy of meeting developers where they are, both geographically and linguistically. Instead of a one‑size‑fits‑all broadcast, AI Dev Days is expanding into a global series so developers worldwide can get training and content that matches their local context. Registration links and exact dates for the January 2026 events will follow, but the message is clear: AI Dev Days is not just a one‑off show; it is a continuing global effort.
How to get ready
If you plan to attend, the best way to prepare is to register ahead of time, bookmark the YouTube streams for Day 1 and Day 2, and make sure your Azure and GitHub Copilot accounts are set up before the workshops start. Block off time on your calendar for the sessions most relevant to your work, especially the hands‑on labs, since those will help you translate the concepts into concrete skills fast.
With AI Dev Days, Microsoft is ending 2025 by pulling together the most important tools, concepts, and workflows developers will need for 2026: agentic architectures, MCP‑based tool integration, AI‑driven DevOps, and deeply integrated Copilot experiences across VS Code, Visual Studio, and GitHub. If you are building on the Microsoft stack—or thinking about moving more of your workloads onto Azure and GitHub—this event is one of the most efficient ways to catch up on everything you might have missed this year and set a clear direction for your AI roadmap.
Register for AI Dev Days China
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