I love street art as I find it brings color and life to otherwise gray streets and buildings. On the walk between the conference venue and my hotel I passed a lot of murals. Some were large, others subtle and hidden in corners you’d almost overlook. I liked this one as these days away from my daily work give me space to breathe and connect with our community to absorb fresh ideas.
Agentic AI
Let’s start with the elephant in the room; Yes, it’s AI and Yes, it’s agentic! Around me, I see people doing amazing things with Copilot, but I couldn’t get it to work for myself to be honest. I realized I needed to find a workflow that would work for me. One where I didn’t have to fight the AI over its unpredictable outcomes. For me the problem was that there was always a new tool or model just around the corner. Do I need VS Code, Cursor or Claude? Which model should I choose? Do I need to become a prompt engineer? How do I even begin to control this beast?
Back to Directions EMEA. Last year, I felt there were too many sessions about AI. This year, I couldn’t get enough. The difference for me is that last year I did see the potential, but now, with tools becoming available and real world examples everywhere, I see how I can use it in my daily work. And not just for development, but also for gathering requirements, creating documentation and analyzing telemetry!
Development Zone
New this year were the dedicated zones for Leadership, Consulting and Development. I followed multiple sessions in the Development zone. Though calling them “sessions” doesn’t quite capture it, it felt more like grabbing a drink while a fellow colleague shared a story. The setup made it feel informal and close. No microphones, no distance, just people leaning in to listen, which made it feel even more personal.
One thing I’d love to see next year is for these zone sessions to be listed directly in the Directions app schedule. With so much going on, it would help to plan better and not miss out on these.
Sessions
A big shoutout to all the speakers this year; You’re the rockstars! The preparation, the time, the energy you poured into it and your willingness to climb on stage and share your experiences and knowledge with us, shows your dedication and strengthens our community.
Choosing sessions this year was more difficult than ever. There were time slots where I had to pick between three, sometimes even four parallel sessions (and not to mention deciding between attending a session or diving into a workshop). I definitely missed a few I really wanted to see, so I’m hoping there’ll be follow-up webinars or future conferences where I can catch up on what I missed.
Here are a few highlights from the sessions that stood out to me. The content, the perspectives and the practical takeaways that I’m bringing back with me and already looking to apply in my daily work.
Hey Azure DevOps users! Let’s talk about GitHub – DeepDive
As an Azure DevOps user, I loved the session on GitHub comparison. Kamil Sacek and Krzysztof Bialowas didn’t only talked about the differences, but they shared their real-world experiences between the both. With the great features of Copilot on GitHub it would make sense to move your repository to GitHub and use a hybrid solution between Azure DevOps, so you have the best of both worlds.
You need to implement Agents now! …But what even is an Agent?
I came into this session questioning how and when we should implement (agentic) Agents into our world of AI. Tine Staric has a talent to bring this complex question to the audience in his one unique way and bring us along in his story in a completely “sold out” packed conference room!
From Chaos to Code: Building a Knowledge-First Development Workflow
Just when I thought I knew a bit on how to work with Copilot in VS Code, Jeremy’s session felt like I’m years behind. I’ve been told not to worry, as most of the things he has shown didn’t exist a few months ago, which shows how fast things are evolving currently, it’s wild.
I often find my agents, whether it’s ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, running off into the woods and returning with results I was not expecting. This session showcased how we get the knowledge into the development workflow, which will absolutely improve your results on agentic AI development.
43 dev tips in 45 minutes
I always appreciate sessions like the one from Milan Milinčević. There are always some hidden gems in there. Things you didn’t know or maybe even forgot. Some are small, but super useful in your daily work and you can start using them right away on Monday. Even though Luc van Vugt unfortunately couldn’t join us this year he was virtually with us through the slides.
Keynote Day 3 – Is AI working for you ?
The Community Keynote on Day 3 featured two familiar faces from the Business Central community; Krzysztof “KB” Bialowas and Jeremy Vyska. It was great to see them on the main stage sharing how they see AI fitting into the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ecosystem. With KB having recently stepping into a new role as “AI First Director for Business Central” and Jeremy Vyska continues to support our community by sharing his experience with AI through the Nubimancy project, their contributions highlighted the importance of shared learning through this AI shift.
Closing
The Directions for Partners team delivered another fantastic edition of Directions EMEA this year in Poznań. Huge thanks to the organizers for pulling it all together and I’m looking forward to next year in Paris.