The most effective developers aren't writing more code. They're writing less. They've made a fundamental shift: instead of treating AI as a helper, they treat it as their primary instrument and code manually only when necessary.

This session challenges you to invert your approach. Through live demonstrations and real scenarios, we'll explore what AI-first development actually looks like in practice, from selecting the right tool for the job across an expanding landscape of AI assistants, to crafting prompts that yield production-worthy results, to knowing when human judgment must override AI suggestions.

You'll leave with:

* A mental model for approaching any development task AI-first

* Practical patterns for orchestrating multiple AI tools effectively

* Clear guardrails for when AI-generated code helps - and when it hurts

* Strategies for building these skills within the Microsoft ecosystem and beyond

Whether you're skeptical or already experimenting, this session will reshape how you think about your role as a developer in an AI-saturated world. The future belongs to conductors, not coders.