Microsoft will hold its Build developer conference in San Francisco this summer, moving one of its best-known annual events away from the Seattle area and adding another major technology gathering to the city’s already packed 2026 conference calendar. The event is scheduled for June 2 and 3 at Fort Mason Center, with online access also planned for keynote and select sessions.
The shift is a notable one for Microsoft. Build has long been associated with the company’s home region in Washington state, and 2026 marks the first time since 2016 that the conference will be held outside Seattle. The move places one of Microsoft’s flagship developer events in the middle of a city that has become central to the current AI boom, where startups, cloud companies, model developers, and enterprise software firms increasingly overlap.
Microsoft is framing this year’s event as a gathering for AI developers, technical leaders, and enterprise developers. The company says the conference will feature keynote presentations, demos, workshops, and technical sessions focused on its developer ecosystem and AI products. In-person tickets are priced at $1,099.
The speaker lineup also underscores the event’s developer-first positioning. Confirmed participants include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, GitHub senior vice president Jared Palmer, and Scott Hanselman, Microsoft’s vice president of developer communities. Featured speakers listed on Microsoft’s official Build page include Jared Palmer, Scott Hanselman, Simon Willison, Chip Huyen, swyx, Priyanka Sharma, Rob Ferguson, and Ion Stoica, giving the conference a broader industry mix beyond Microsoft’s own executive bench.
That matters because Build is being presented as more focused than some of Microsoft’s broader corporate events. Reporting around the conference has described a smaller format aimed at closer interaction between attendees, speakers, and product teams. GitHub COO Kyle Daigle said the shift is intended to create a more community-centered developer experience, with greater emphasis on practical access to announcements and demos rather than a large, sprawling convention format.
San Francisco is hardly new territory for Microsoft, but the company’s conference footprint in the city is growing. Microsoft also held Ignite in San Francisco last year and plans to return that event to Moscone Center in 2026. Build’s move to Fort Mason gives the company another prominent Bay Area venue and signals that, despite Microsoft’s headquarters identity as a Seattle-area giant, it sees strategic value in staging major events closer to the center of today’s AI and developer conversation.
For San Francisco, the addition of Build fits a broader pattern. The city remains one of the technology industry’s preferred gathering places for major conferences, even after years of debate over office vacancies, public safety concerns, and shifting work patterns. In 2026, San Francisco is already set to host a long list of high-profile events across software, cybersecurity, payments, gaming, and cloud infrastructure. Microsoft’s decision adds another recognizable name to that slate and reinforces the city’s importance as a live meeting point for the tech industry.
The Fort Mason location also gives Build a different feel from the more traditional downtown convention model. Reporting on the conference indicates attendance will be capped at about 2,500 developers, smaller than some prior editions, suggesting Microsoft wants a tighter event that is more interactive and less diffuse. That may be especially attractive at a time when developers are looking for direct access to tools, product roadmaps, and peers as AI reshapes software workflows across the industry.
The timing of the move is also hard to ignore. San Francisco remains one of the focal points of the AI economy, home to many of the companies and investors shaping the current cycle of experimentation and commercialization. By bringing Build to the city, Microsoft places its developer conference closer to that energy and to the communities it is trying to reach through GitHub, Azure, Copilot, and its broader AI platform strategy. That does not necessarily mean Build is permanently leaving Seattle, but it does suggest Microsoft is willing to rethink where and how one of its signature events should operate.
For now, the result is straightforward. One of the software industry’s most recognizable conferences is coming to San Francisco, with Nadella, Palmer, Hanselman, Willison, Sharma, and Wang among the confirmed names tied to the event. For Microsoft, it is a strategic venue change. For San Francisco, it is another sign that the city remains a powerful draw for the companies and developers shaping the next phase of the technology industry.
For more on the Bay Area’s expanding AI conference calendar, read our coverage of NVIDIA’s upcoming GTC event in San Jose.
