.NET 11 is out: Microsoft speeds up the SDK and bets on AI agents

Microsoft has officially released .NET 11 and kicked off .NET Conf 2026. Beyond union types in C# 15, the team focused on the speed of everyday work. The .NET command line now starts through a host compiled with Native AOT, and the MSBuild server stays warm between invocations, so simple commands run faster. The second big theme is AI. Apps with agents get Microsoft.Extensions.AI, MCP and Microsoft Agent Framework, while AI assistants in the editor are helped by .NET Skills, a set of platform-specific guidance. ASP.NET Core adds asynchronous validation and OpenAPI 3.2, and .NET MAUI now uses CoreCLR by default.