16 years of Microsoft Build: A timeline of key announcements, panels, and sessions

Microsoft Build 2026 runs on June 2 and 3 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, a notable shift from the Seattle venues that have hosted the conference for most of the past decade.

With around 2,500 developers expected in person and keynotes streaming free online at build.microsoft.com, it is shaping up to be one of the most focused and intimate editions the event has seen.

Build has been running since 2011. Across those 16 years it has grown into Microsoft's most important venue for developer-facing news. This article walks through every edition of the conference, covering the major announcements, headline sessions, and platform shifts that have shaped both the corporation and its developer ecosystem.

• Register for Microsoft Build here

What is Microsoft Build?

Microsoft Build (officially stylised as //build/) is an annual developer conference aimed at software engineers building on Windows, Microsoft Azure, and the company's broader technology platform. Sessions range from hands-on technical workshops to product keynotes, with the opening address typically delivered by CEO Satya Nadella. It is where Microsoft previews new APIs, ships tools into preview or general availability, and signals its direction for the year ahead.

The conference sits apart from other Microsoft events in its audience and intent. Ignite targets IT professionals and enterprise administrators, and Surface hardware launches are primarily consumer-facing. Build is built specifically for software developers, whether they are writing desktop apps on Windows, running infrastructure on Azure, or working with Microsoft's AI platform.

Third-party companies and open-source contributors appear alongside Microsoft's own product teams. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined virtually at Build 2025 and GitHub leadership has been central to recent editions. That combination makes Build a useful indicator of where the Microsoft developer ecosystem is heading, not only where Microsoft itself intends to go.

How long has Microsoft Build been going for?

The first Build conference ran from September 13 to 16, 2011, in Anaheim, California, making 2026 the 16th edition. That debut event ran four days and centred on a developer preview of Windows 8. The format has changed several times since, in terms of length, location, and size — and in 2020, whether it took place in person at all.

Most editions run two to three days, though the fully virtual 2020 conference stretched across 48 hours of continuous content. In-person attendance has typically landed between 3,000 and 5,000 developers. Build 2026 is deliberately smaller, capped at roughly 2,500, with Microsoft trading scale for intensity by focusing on hands-on access to AI systems and direct time with product engineers.

Build remains relevant to anyone working within the Microsoft ecosystem. If you are developing on Windows, running workloads on Azure, building with GitHub, or integrating with Microsoft's AI tooling, the conference has a direct bearing on your day-to-day stack. That relevance has grown as Microsoft has moved deeper into cloud and AI territory, where the pace of change makes Build one of the more practical ways to stay current.

The decision to move Build 2026 back to San Francisco after nine years in Seattle came down to proximity to the Bay Area's AI and startup community. GitHub COO Kyle Daigle told The Verge that the goal was to create an event where meeting with other developers was "just as much a part of the actual conference content" as the formal announcements. That shift reflects how much the conference has changed since its opening year.

A complete history of Microsoft Build

Since its first edition in 2011, Build has tracked Microsoft's own evolution, from a company defined by Windows to one now defined by cloud computing and AI. Here is what happened at every edition.

Build 2011: The beginning

The inaugural Build conference ran September 13–16, 2011, at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Windows 8 was the centrepiece: Microsoft released a developer preview of the operating system, giving attendees their first hands-on look at the tile-based Metro interface and the new app model built around it.

Developer Preview builds of Windows Server 2012 and Visual Studio 2012 were also released during the event. Every attendee received a Samsung tablet preloaded with the Windows 8 Developer Preview, custom hardware manufactured specifically for the conference at a reported cost well above the registration fee of $2,095.

Build 2012: Back to Redmond

Dates: October 30 – November 2, 2012, Microsoft Campus, Redmond

The 2012 edition arrived just weeks after Windows 8 launched commercially, so sessions shifted from previewing the platform to building on top of it. The key areas of focus were:

Windows 8: Development tools, APIs, and app model guidance for the new platform.

Windows Azure: Cloud platform updates, including new storage and compute options.

Windows Phone 8: SDK and tools for the newly launched mobile platform.

Attendees received a Surface RT with a Touch Cover, a Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone, and 100GB of free SkyDrive storage.

Build 2013: Windows 8.1 takes the stage

The 2013 conference moved to the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Microsoft used the event to unveil Windows 8.1, a significant update responding to criticism of Windows 8, most notably the removal of the Start button and the abrupt full-screen app model.

The update was the first visible output of Microsoft's "Blue" initiative, a coordinated series of updates across Windows, Windows Phone, and related services intended to bring greater consistency across the product family.

Did you know? Every attendee at Build 2013 walked away with a Surface Pro, an Acer Iconia W3 tablet (the first 8-inch Windows 8 device), one year of Adobe Creative Cloud, and 100GB of SkyDrive storage, making it one of the more generous conference giveaway packages in the event's history.

Build 2014: Nadella's first keynote

Build 2014 was the first conference under Satya Nadella as CEO, following his appointment in February 2014. He introduced Microsoft's updated strategy under the "mobile-first, cloud-first" banner, repositioning the company away from its long-standing Windows-centric identity. Windows Phone 8.1 was formally launched at the event, bringing with it the debut of Cortana, Microsoft's new voice-powered personal assistant.

On the developer side, Microsoft announced that Roslyn, its .NET compiler platform, would be fully open-sourced, a meaningful gesture toward the open-source community at a time when Microsoft was still rebuilding trust there. Azure SQL expanded to support databases up to 500GB, and a redesigned Azure portal launched in preview.

Build 2015: Windows 10, Edge, and a new code editor

Build 2015 shipped announcements across several product lines simultaneously:

Windows 10 Developer Preview released publicly during the conference.

Microsoft Edge named for the first time (previously codenamed Project Spartan).

Visual Studio Code launched as a free, cross-platform code editor for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

HoloLens demoed live at the conference to strong audience response.

Universal Windows Platform introduced, letting developers target all Windows 10 device types from a single codebase.

Visual Studio Code is now one of the most widely used development tools in the industry, which makes its quiet debut here in 2015 easy to underestimate in retrospect.

Build 2016: Bash on Windows, bots, and Xamarin goes free

Build 2016 introduced "Conversation as a Platform," Microsoft's argument that chatbots and conversational interfaces would become a central computing model. The Bot Framework gave developers a structured way to build and deploy conversational bots across messaging services, including Skype and Cortana. Microsoft also made Xamarin (acquired earlier that year) free for all Visual Studio users and open-sourced the runtime.

The most unexpected announcement was the Windows Subsystem for Linux: native Bash shell support coming directly to Windows 10, without dual-booting or a virtual machine. For developers working across Windows and Linux environments, it was a significant practical change. The conference also introduced Azure Service Fabric to general availability and launched a preview of Azure Functions for serverless computing. Registration for Build 2016 sold out within one minute of opening.

Build 2017: Fluent Design, Cosmos DB, and a new city

The 2017 edition moved the conference to Seattle for the first time, at the Washington State Convention Center. Microsoft introduced the Fluent Design System, an updated visual language replacing the older Metro/Modern approach for Windows 10 apps. Azure Cosmos DB launched as a globally distributed, multi-model database service.

Meanwhile the Cortana Skills Kit entered public preview, giving developers a formal way to extend the voice assistant with custom capabilities. Windows 10 was reported to have reached 500 million active devices at the time of the conference.

Build 2018: Live Share, IntelliCode, and Kinect returns

Several notable announcements focused around AI, IoT, and voice assistants.

Visual Studio Live Share: Real-time collaborative editing across different IDEs, regardless of language or platform.

IntelliCode: AI-assisted code completion extending Visual Studio's IntelliSense with context-aware suggestions.

Project Kinect for Azure: A new depth-sensing device intended for AI and IoT applications, reviving Kinect technology from its gaming origins.

Cortana-Alexa integration: Announced in limited preview, allowing users to invoke one assistant from within the other.

.NET Core 3.0 roadmap: Covering Windows Forms and WPF desktop apps running on .NET Core for the first time.

Build 2019: WSL 2 and Windows Terminal

Microsoft announced WSL 2 at the 2019 conference: a redesigned Windows Subsystem for Linux running on a genuine Linux kernel rather than a translation layer. It delivered full system call compatibility and substantially faster I/O performance, making it practical for a much wider range of Linux workloads.

Alongside it, the Windows Terminal launched in preview as a modern terminal application with tab support, GPU-accelerated text rendering, and deep customisation. Both tools addressed requests that had been sitting in the developer community for years.

Build 2020: Going virtual

Did you know? Build 2020 was the first entirely virtual edition of the conference, moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It ran as a free 48-hour digital experience across May 19–20, 2020, drawing a significantly larger global audience than any previous in-person edition.

Microsoft announced Project Reunion (later renamed the Windows App SDK) during the event, an effort to unify Win32 and Universal Windows Platform APIs under a single open-source package. Windows Terminal reached version 1.0, WSL 2 shipped as part of the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, and winget, the new Windows Package Manager, entered public preview.

Build 2021: Teasing Windows 11

Build 2021 remained virtual, and Nadella teased a forthcoming Windows update that he described as among the most significant in a decade. That hint pointed to Windows 11, which Microsoft announced officially five weeks later. The conference otherwise concentrated on developer velocity:

Power Platform fusion development: New tools for professional developers to collaborate with low-code citizen developers.

Microsoft Teams developer APIs: Expanded support for meeting extensions, Together mode customisation, and audio/video access.

Azure Arc: Expanded to allow more Azure services to run outside of Azure's own data centres

Visual Studio 2022 roadmap: Published.

Build 2022: Azure OpenAI Service arrives

Azure OpenAI Service announced, bringing OpenAI's language models to Azure for enterprise customers.

Azure Container Apps launched, adding serverless container orchestration to Azure.

Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform introduced as a unified data and analytics layer across Azure services.

Project Volterra revealed: a developer device running Qualcomm's ARM silicon, aimed at native ARM development on Windows.

Power Apps Express Design previewed, using AI to generate app interfaces from uploaded images or sketches.

The Azure OpenAI Service announcement at Build 2022 was the most consequential of the conference's modern run. It laid the commercial infrastructure for everything Microsoft would build in the AI era over the following three years.

Build 2023: Copilot era begins

Build 2023 put AI at the front of every product line Microsoft discussed. The conference introduced Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, across Windows 11, Microsoft 365, Edge, and GitHub in a single event. The Microsoft-OpenAI partnership became visibly central to the product strategy: Bing was announced as the default search engine for ChatGPT and developers gained tools for building and distributing AI plugins through the Microsoft Store.

For the first time, the entire conference operated around a single organising idea, with AI connecting Windows, cloud, and productivity tools rather than each receiving its own separate focus.

Build 2024: Copilot+ PCs and GPT-4o

Build 2024 introduced Copilot+ PCs, a new hardware category defined by dedicated neural processing units capable of at least 40 TOPS of AI performance. The launch was Microsoft's first attempt to define AI-capable hardware as a distinct PC tier, separate from standard Windows devices.

On the cloud side, GPT-4o, OpenAI's multimodal model, reached general availability on Azure AI during the conference. Team Copilot was announced as an expansion of Microsoft 365 Copilot designed to act as a shared AI assistant for entire teams rather than individual users. Microsoft's Phi-3 family of small language models became available through Azure AI's model catalog, and GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio Code hit general availability.

Build 2025: The age of AI agents

The 2025 conference produced more than 50 announcements under the theme of AI agents. The most widely covered was a new GitHub Copilot coding agent that could autonomously fix bugs, write tests, and open pull requests without developer prompting.

Microsoft 365 Copilot gained Researcher and Analyst, two reasoning-oriented agents built specifically for professional workflows. DeepSeek R1 models arrived on Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs for local on-device inference, reducing dependence on cloud connectivity for AI tasks.

In a notable open-source move, Microsoft released the majority of the Windows Subsystem for Linux codebase publicly at the conference, nine years after WSL was first announced at Build 2016.

Build 2026: Back to San Francisco (upcoming)

The 2026 edition runs June 2–3 at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco, the first time the conference has been held in the city since 2016. Microsoft has limited in-person attendance to around 2,500 developers at the waterfront venue, positioning the event around hands-on access to live AI systems and direct engagement with Microsoft's engineering teams.

Satya Nadella will deliver the opening keynote on June 2. Expected areas of focus include next-generation Copilot capabilities, GitHub platform developments, and new APIs across Windows and Azure AI Foundry.

How to attend Microsoft Build 2026

Build 2026 takes place on June 2–3, 2026 at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, 2 Marina Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94123. In-person tickets are priced at $1,099, while online is free. Registration is open on the Microsoft Build website here.

With around 2,500 in-person spots available at a smaller venue than most previous editions, tickets are expected to sell quickly. Microsoft is offering visa support letters for international attendees with approved registrations and will refund tickets if a visa is denied.

If attending in person is not an option, Microsoft streams the opening keynote and selected sessions for free starting June 2. On-demand recordings from previous Build editions, including full session libraries going back several years, are also available through Microsoft Learn and the official Build website, so you can follow the announcements and deep-dive sessions after the fact.

This year's event carries more weight than a typical edition. The return to San Francisco, the smaller format, and the explicit emphasis on hands-on AI development all signal a conference that will feel different from recent years. If the direction of GitHub Copilot, Azure AI Foundry, and Microsoft's AI agent platform is relevant to your work, Build 2026 is where those stories will start.