We’re excited to announce the first wave of speakers for Microsoft JDConf 2026, our flagship community event for Java at Microsoft. Whether you’re architecting enterprise microservices, modernizing legacy systems, or building intelligent applications, JDConf 2026 will equip you with the insights and tools to stay ahead. Live streamed across three time zones, the event gives developers worldwide direct access to the engineers, architects, and community leaders driving modern Java forward.

Registration is now open. Visit jdconf.com for updates.

The Voices Shaping Modern Java at Microsoft JDConf 2026

Across industries, AI is moving from experiments to production systems that require scale, reliability, and governance. Java remains central to making that shift possible inside the enterprise platforms businesses already depend on.

JDConf 2026 brings together leading voices from across the global Java ecosystem and top technology companies who are shaping that evolution in real time. Sneak peek at this year’s featured sessions: a strong Java-focused lineup led by engineers and architects working deep in the JVM ecosystem. These talks zero in on modern Java development, performance, cloud-native architectures, and pragmatic approaches to bringing AI into Java applications without adding unnecessary risk.

Java & AI-Native Architectures

From Cloud Native to AI Native: Harnessing Quarkus, MCP, and Azure OpenAI Daniel Oh, Senior Principal Developer Advocate, Red Hat & IBM

Daniel is a Java Champion with deep experience in cloud native Java and open-source ecosystems. At JDConf 2026, he will build a Quarkus microservice that connects enterprise systems through MCP and integrates Azure OpenAI, showing how to move from a standard cloud native service to a production-ready AI-enabled application.

Bootiful Spring AI Josh Long, Spring Developer Advocate, Broadcom

Josh has been the first Spring Developer Advocate since 2010 and is known for his fast-paced, code-first demos and unmistakable stage presence. Bringing his trademark energy to JDConf 2026, he’ll show how to integrate AI into Spring Boot applications using Spring AI, walking through practical examples that make modern AI integration feel accessible and immediate for Java developers.

Java RAG Made Easy with Spring AI and Elasticsearch Laura Trotta, Senior Software Engineer, Elastic

Laura maintains the official Java client for Elasticsearch and actively contributes to Spring AI, Spring Data, and Spring Boot. In this session, she’ll demonstrate how to build a retrieval-augmented generation pipeline in Java using Spring AI and Elasticsearch as a vector store, showing how to turn private data into a domain-specific chatbot with a practical, live demo.

Agentic Systems & Memory

Secrets of Agentic Memory Management Principal Applied AI Engineer, Redis

Brian is a Java Champion and Principal Applied AI Engineer at Redis with more than three decades of experience building production systems. In this session, he’ll break down how modern agents manage short- and long-term memory, covering summarization, semantic retrieval, promotion, and consolidation, and show practical strategies for building memory-aware Java agents using tools like MCP.

Self-Improving Agentic Systems with Spring AI R&D Software Engineer, Spring Team at Broadcom

Christian leads the Spring AI and MCP Java SDK projects, helping shape how AI is built into the Spring ecosystem. In this session, he’ll demonstrate how to design agents that iterate, call tools, and refine their outputs using Spring AI’s Advisor model, moving beyond simple prompt-response patterns.

How to Build and Orchestrate Scalable Multi-Agent AI Systems Mary Grygleski, VP Global AI Collective & Java Champion

Mary is a Java Champion, technical architect, and long-time community leader with deep experience in distributed systems and streaming platforms. In this session, she’ll demonstrate how to design multi-agent AI systems in Java using event-driven patterns such as pub/sub and orchestration, showing tools like Kafka, Pulsar, Spring Messaging, and MCP enable scalable, coordinated agent workflows.

You’re Absolutely Right, It Was Your Home Directory! Oleg Šelajev, AI & Developer Relations, Docker

Oleg is a Java Champion, Microsoft MVP, and Docker Captain focused on AI-driven developer productivity and Testcontainers. In this session, he’ll demonstrate how Docker Sandboxes provide controlled environments for AI agents, showing how to run agent-driven development workflows safely without risking your filesystem, secrets, or local machine.

Real-World Modernization

How the Dutch IRS Implemented AI-Assisted App Modernization  Java Enthusiast & Special Agent, Team Rockstars IT

Ron Veen has over 20 years of JVM experience spanning mainframes and modern cloud-native systems. In this session, he’ll walk through how the Dutch IRS migrated from a monolith to Kubernetes-based microservices using AI-assisted development in a tightly regulated environment, sharing practical lessons from modernizing sensitive enterprise systems with Copilot Studio.

Modern Java & Testing

Playwright: Your Next Java Test Framework for Automating Web Tests Alex Soto, Developer Advocate, IBM

Alex Soto is a Java Champion, author, and long-time advocate for automation and open source in the Java ecosystem. In this session, he’ll introduce Playwright for Java, demonstrating how to build resilient, cross-browser web tests, generate test code, and use built-in tooling such as reporting and session replay to better understand and debug test failures.

DevOps & Security

Deploying to Production with Confidence Andres Almiray, Seasoned Sourceror

Andres Almiray is a Java Champion and long-time open-source contributor with over two decades in the Java ecosystem. In this session, he’ll cover practical software supply chain security topics such as SBOMs, SLSA, reproducible builds, and CI/CD hardening, outlining how teams can reduce risk before deploying to production.

RSVP Now

Microsoft JDConf 2026 is a free global virtual event streamed live across three time zones. It brings together Java developers and architects from around the world to share real-world experience with the latest advancements in Java, cloud, and AI.

Register today at jdconf.com to join the conversation and earn Microsoft Rewards while learning directly from the engineers and community leaders shaping modern Java. More speakers and sessions will be announced soon. Join us to learn more about the modern Java solutions for an agentic world!