Jamie Prady – Development Director

“This was my first time attending Build. It does feel like we’re living in strange times. To listen to the keynotes, you’d think that we as developers, the infrastructure folks, and even the PMs won’t have much to do when AI takes over for the business people. The devil is in the detail though – and as most of the other sessions covered – this stuff is a lot harder and needs a lot more work to get right than at first glance!

Some highlights for me included the security around AI (and integrating this into Defender), Building Copilots with Copilot Studio and AI Studio, 5 things Etsy learnt from AI deployment, and inside Azure’s AI Platform. We’ll fill you in with more of these technical details as we can…

Esoteric highlight of the conference was the session on someone trying to run a .NET application on a NES emulator. Considering he worked on the .Net team, he didn’t seem to have a grounding in Computer Science. I’ve never wanted to heckle someone by shouting “big endian and little endian” more!”

Marco Sacco – Developer

As a software developer I recently attended the three-day Microsoft Build Conference, there were many announcements and not surprisingly AI was the main focus. here is what stood out for me.

Co-Pilot Integration into Azure

The introduction of Copilot into Azure was interesting. With Copilot, various aspects of an Azure estate can be queried and actioned on by using natural language. For example, if a web app is not functioning you could easily ask to retrieve logs and analyse them for recommendations on solutions. You could even then ask Copilot to implement the fixes for you. This gives a user an enormous amount of ability to speed up creation of resources and diagnosis of any issues.

Custom Copilots and Chatbot Development

A momentous change for me was the introduction of custom Copilots. These specialised chatbots drastically speed up chatbot creation by integrating custom data. As someone who had spent months building a chatbot, this development would now shave months off the process. An exciting prospect. Even more exciting was Copilot Agents. Not only could they retrieve organisation-specific data, but they could also act on it. A chatbot that not only answers queries but also sends emails, generates reports, and interacts with other systems based on chat input. It is a leap toward intelligent automation, and I am eager to explore these newfound capabilities in my work.

Personal High Points: I was able to take advantage of the free exam offer in which I was able to pass the Power Platform Fundamentals exam. Thanks so much to Quorum, for allowing me to experience this amazing conference.

I look forward to exploring these innovations further which will no doubt transform the way I build software in the future.”

Grant Olsson – DevOps Engineer

I had the privilege of attending the Microsoft Build 2024 conference, my first such event with Quorum. The sessions were interesting and engaging. The keynote, which delved into AI and Copilot technologies, set the stage for the rest of the conference.

I was particularly drawn to the sessions on GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps, which I found eye-opening, especially when it came to identifying secret leaks and reducing dependency debt. Additionally, the session on platform engineering shed light on how platform engineers empower developers to deploy their own infrastructure for applications, while maintaining necessary guardrails.

The golden path with GitHub Actions and the behind-the-scenes look at how GitHub builds itself were equally fascinating. However, the highlight of the conference for me was the discussion of gaming industry use cases for Azure and AI. Learning about the infrastructure supporting Xbox, as well as how AI can be used to assist players in games.

As I reflect on the conference, one key takeaway stands out: integrating GitHub Advanced Security can significantly benefit our clients by preventing dependency debt and enhancing code quality.

Blair Duncan – Developer

Attending Build for the second time was a highly informative experience, providing valuable insights into the evolving landscape of AI and its implications for our industry. The keynotes and smaller sessions underscored a future where AI is increasingly utilised to manage routine tasks, thereby enabling professionals to focus on more strategic initiatives. The conference prominently featured AI, with significant emphasis on Copilot, highlighting Microsoft’s strategic investment in this technology.

A particularly noteworthy session included a presentation on running .NET on a NES emulator, demonstrating innovative problem-solving within the constraints of an 8KB RAM environment. This session served as a compelling conclusion to the conference.

Additionally, the talk titled “How GitHub Builds GitHub on GitHub by GitHub” provided valuable insights into GitHub’s internal processes, offering comprehensive coverage of current industry trends and best practices. The main speaker, Martin Woodward, was particularly engaging and maintained audience interest throughout his presentation.