It is the age of AI, and there is a huge opportunity for developers to infuse apps with solutions powered by Generative AI and large/small language models. Modern AI is also big opportunity to streamline and automate developer workflows for better productivity. There are some challenges though – AI Models often lack context, and AI Agents need expertise to reliably pull off complex workflows across disparate systems.

Developers can infuse .NET apps with a wealth of intelligence using Generative AI and Large Language Models. The benefits of AI can also be passed down to app users for productivity – Smart UI Components can help. AI-powered UI can light up modern .NET apps - with Semantic Kernel, Local Embeddings or APIs to cloud services, developers can ease app interactions with contextual AI suggestions/completions, all leading to better UX for users.

Generative AI is also very good for developer productivity, but honest reality check shows lots of hallucinations from AI Models, inaccurate code generation and lack of expertise in complex AI Agentic workflows – all this actually hinders productivity. The key is context – and you can help bring it. While RAG can be tricky to scale, it is easy to extend AI Model capabilities – custom chat experiences can bring deeply contextual answers trained on specialized data/Docs/APIs. Developed as an open standard, Model Context Protocol (MCP) aims to provide a standardized way to connect AI Models/Agents to custom data sources, tools and non-public information - MCP specs also support robust authentication toward executing specific tasks on behalf of users. MCP is growing in popularity and is showing a lot of promise as the emerging standard that bridges AI models with the tools they rely on - let’s explore tooling to easily create MCP Servers/Clients.

Developers can bring contextual enterprise intelligence to AI – armed with solid tools and robust SDKs, it is easy to extend AI capabilities or expose deep expertise through MCP Server/Tools. Modern AI can inspire developers to create the next generation of amazing .NET apps and boost productivity – context is everything though. Let’s get to work!