GoKawiilIt's tech developer conference season. Following closely after Google I/O and just ahead of Apple's WWDC, Microsoft is set to take the stage with its annual Build conference. The event will be held in San Francisco on June 2–3, beginning with an opening keynote at 10 a.m. PT on June 2. While in-person attendance costs nearly $1,100, Microsoft will stream the conference live for free on its website and YouTube channel.
We expect the Windows-maker to focus on AI -- it's essentially required from a tech company these days, and Microsoft knows that. But what exactly is in store at this year's conference? We have a few guesses, and some of the session speakers say a lot about how AI is being viewed over at Microsoft right now.
On Monday, CEO Satya Nadella will report on what Microsoft has been up to and its plans for the future. Here's what we're expecting.
Copilot and AI agents
Copilot is now the vehicle for Microsoft's AI endeavors, so we expect it to feature heavily at this year's conference. During Microsoft's latest earnings call, Nadella said the company is "evolving our family of Copilots from synchronous assistants to async coworkers that can execute long-running tasks across key domains." In fact, Agent Mode is now the default mode across several Office 365 Copilot products, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Agents will be the new normal and focus for Microsoft going forward.
"We are at the beginning of one of the most consequential platform shifts that will change the entire tech stack as agents proliferate and become the dominant workload," Nadella said.
Given its status as the new, hot thing in the AI world, agentic AI is almost boring to talk about at this point. It's everywhere. But its capabilities will likely be at the center of Microsoft's announcements. Unlike a typical chatbot, agentic AI can perform tasks on your behalf. An agent can surface relevant information in your email inbox or even shop for you.
We already know that the company's own AI assistant, Copilot, is becoming more agentic in Office 365, and we expect that to extend further into Microsoft's products and operating system.
It's hard to talk about agentic AI in 2026 without mentioning OpenClaw, and Build will certainly include discussion of the viral AI agent tool. The "Clawfather" himself, OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger, is hosting a breakout session this year.
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