Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Build 2026, starts Tuesday, June 2, 2026, with a keynote address from CEO Satya Nadella at 12:30 p.m. Eastern / 9:30 a.m. Pacific. The two-day event, streamed online from Seattle, promises to chart the company’s next moves in artificial intelligence, Windows on Arm, and a radical rethinking of the PC experience—what insiders are calling an “AI PC reset.”

While Microsoft has not published a session list, the conference arrives at a pivotal moment. The Copilot assistant is expanding across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, Windows on Arm devices are shipping with increasingly competitive Snapdragon X processors, and the very definition of a personal computer is being rewritten by on-device AI models. Build 2026 is where developers will learn how to write software for that new world.

How to Watch the Livestream

The opening keynote with Satya Nadella will be broadcast live on the official Microsoft Developer YouTube channel and the Build event website. No registration is required for the keynote; Microsoft typically makes the stream available to the public. Subsequent technical sessions—covering cloud, AI, developer tools, and more—may require a free virtual attendee pass, which can be secured at the Build registration page.

The conference runs June 2 and 3, 2026, with sessions scheduled across multiple time zones. On-demand replays usually appear within 24 hours.

What Is an “AI PC Reset”?

The phrase has been floating through developer forums and analyst notes for months. It points to Microsoft’s ambition to move beyond the chat-based Copilot sidebar and deeply embed generative AI into the operating system, the silicon, and the application model.

Windows 11’s recent 24H2 update introduced the first wave of AI experiences—Recall, Cocreator in Paint, and Windows Studio Effects—but those features require a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) with at least 40 TOPS of performance. Build 2026 is expected to reveal the next phase: an AI stack that lets any developer tap into local models through a unified runtime, possibly called Windows AI Platform.

Instead of waiting for cloud inference, applications could call on-device models for text summarization, image generation, or code completion, with the system switching dynamically between local and cloud endpoints based on latency and capability. This reset would force a reexamination of what an “app” is in Windows—less a monolithic executable, more a set of AI skills triggered by natural language or contextual cues.

Microsoft has not confirmed these details, but job listings and recently published patent filings point to a hybrid AI engine that brings Copilot’s reasoning to the desktop even when offline.

Copilot Everywhere: From Assistant to Platform

Copilot is no longer just a chatbot. At Build 2026, Microsoft is likely to detail how Copilot’s “skills” model allows third parties to build AI actions that plug directly into the Copilot pane in Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365. This would turn Copilot into a meta-interface—similar to what Google is attempting with Gemini Extensions—but deeply tied to the Windows shell.

Early adopters in the Windows Insider program have already seen hints: a Copilot button in the taskbar that opens a panel with dedicated actions for system settings, file management, and app launches. The underlying framework, based on the Copilot Stack, uses Azure AI and local models to route user intent to the right tool. For developers, the key announcement could be a Copilot SDK that standardizes how to declare what an app can do in natural language terms.

Such a SDK would allow, for example, a photo editor to expose an AI skill like “remove background from selected image” that Copilot could call when a user types “make the background transparent on this picture.” The user might never need to open the app’s full interface.

This shift has profound implications for how developers design user experiences, how they get discovered, and how they monetize. Expect several breakout sessions at Build dedicated to the “Copilot Economy.”

Windows on Arm Gains Momentum

The Windows on Arm narrative has transformed dramatically. Two years ago, emulated x86 apps were sluggish; today, Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips rival Apple’s M4 in native benchmarks while running most legacy software with acceptable performance. Build 2026 will almost certainly showcase the next generation of Arm PCs and the native toolchain support that makes them viable.

One of the biggest remaining gaps is the developer ecosystem. Visual Studio 2022 now runs natively on Arm, but many third-party SDKs and drivers still only target x64. Microsoft is expected to announce a new Arm advisory program and expanded testing infrastructure to help ISVs port their code. A rumor circulating on the Windows Forums suggests that Microsoft will provide free Arm-based virtual machines through Azure for testing and debugging—a move that could accelerate adoption significantly.

Game development is another frontier. The Windows on Arm team has been working on an Arm-native version of DirectX that taps the GPU compute capabilities of Snapdragon X for real-time ray tracing and AI upscaling. If detailed at Build, it would mark the first time a major game engine company (Unity or Unreal) commits to a near-day-one Arm support timeline.

Additional Expected Announcements

Beyond the three headline themes, Build 2026 is likely to touch on:

  • Azure AI and responsible AI tools: New capabilities for fine-tuning models, evaluating output safety, and grounding in enterprise data.
  • Microsoft Fabric and SQL Server 2025: The integrated data platform will get a GenAI-assisted query builder and tighter integration with Copilot for analytics.
  • .NET 10 and C# updates: A preview of the next evolution of the developer framework, with language-level support for AI orchestration.
  • Mixed Reality and Windows in the cloud: Continuations of the Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop story, possibly with a thin client that boots directly into a cloud PC.

Why This Build Matters More Than Most

Every Build is important, but 2026 carries unusual weight. The PC industry is still trying to digest the AI PC wave that began in 2024. Shipments of AI-capable notebooks have not yet caught fire with consumers who remain skeptical of features like Recall. Developers, too, have been slow to retool their applications for an ambient AI interface.

Build 2026 is Microsoft’s opportunity to reset that narrative. By giving developers concrete tools—SDKs, emulators, cloud credits, and clear monetization paths—it can convert the promise of the AI PC into productive reality.

Sessions are expected to be increasingly hands-on, with live coding demonstrations and “bring your own code” workshops that let attendees leave with functional AI prototypes. The conference slogan, hinted at in teaser emails, is “Build the New PC.”

As always, the event will be covered extensively by Windows News, with live blogs and analysis of every major announcement. Whether you’re a .NET veteran, a cloud architect, or a newcomer drawn by AI, June 2 is the day to tune in.