Celebrating its 23rd year, Devnexus 2026 was held from March 4-6, 2026 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Key takeaways included: it's up to Java developers to fix enterprise AI; how to survive the AI uprising; building blocks for AI applications; how to manage an AI-driven manager; and how to improve your career.
The event featured 116 speakers from the Java community who delivered six full-day workshops and talks on eight tracks, such as AI Generative, AI in Practice, Core Java, Java Frameworks and Security and Developer Tools. This event also included: the annual summits for Java User Group (JUG) leaders and Java Champions; the first-ever AI Leadership summit; a Women in Tech luncheon; career mentoring sessions; and interviews facilitated by Neo4J. Approximately 1400 developers attended Devnexus 2026.
Java User Group Leader and Java Champion Summits
The JUG Leader and Java Champion Summits were held on March 4, 2026.
JUG leaders, representing many JUGs from around the world, gathered to discuss how to improve their respective Java user groups. Ammar Yusuf, Staff Engineer at Alchemain, Inc. and Co-Organizer of the Tampa JUG, kicked off the summit by describing his experiences at facilitating the Tampa JUG for the past three years. He described ideas on what has, and has not, worked for them as inspiration for discussion among the leaders.
Afterwards, Bruno Souza and Luiz Real facilitated compiling a list of concerns and challenges from the JUG leaders on running their respective JUGs.
The Java Champions gathered to discuss how to improve the Java Champion nomination and election process.
Attendees from the JUG Leader Summit are pictured in this group photo.
AI Leadership Summit
The first-ever AI Leadership Summit, Advantage, designed for CTOs, CIOs, VPs of Engineering, and Technical Leads, was also held on March 4, 2026. The summit featured 30-40 minute AI-related talks presented by Frank Greco, Pratik Patel, Rod Johnson, David Parry, Dennis Ruzeski, Travis Gosselin, Laurie Lay, Kenneth Kousen and Adib Saikali.
Keynote Address: It's Up To Java Developers to Fix Enterprise AI
Rod Johnson, CEO at Embabel, presented Its Up To Java Developers to Fix Enterprise AI, a keynote address that addressed the role of Java developers in enterprise AI.
Johnson kicked off his presentation by describing the risks and challenges for businesses. These include: personal assistant approaches don't work in enterprise; hype can be a distraction; and AI conversations are driven by people with no understanding, or interest in, enterprise.
Most GenAI enterprise projects fail due to them being inherently non-deterministic, prone to dangerous hallucinations, slow and expensive to run at scale, and difficult to test and validate.
There are three ways Java developers can fix enterprise AI:
- Attack non-determinism by building agents, with proper guardrails, as predictable as possible.
- Integrate with what works by leveraging current domain experts and coding skills. The best results come from an incremental approach.
- Bring structure to LLM interactions as structured types are key for GenAI.
Johnson concluded with these three key takeaways: GenAI needs to "grow up" for enterprise adoption; JVM developers hold the key; and structure and domain integration are vital. Real innovation is key, not just trying to keep up.
Women in Tech Luncheon
Najae Stevenson, Senior Consultant at CGI, facilitated a Women in Tech luncheon designed as a "series of small-group lunch discussions designed to move beyond inspiration into practical, honest conversation" with a "focus on a key topic impacting women in tech - including confidence and visibility, career growth, compensation advocacy, leadership pathways, and navigating the evolving impact of AI on our roles."
Jeanne Boyarsky, Java Champion and Software Developer in NYC, describing her experience as an attendee at the luncheon, told InfoQ:
[The] Women in Tech lunch and discussion wasn't just for women; anyone who wanted to discuss women in tech was welcome! Each table had a topic for conversation and you sat at the table that interested you. A female speaker from the conference was at each table. Mine was work/life balance; a great topic. We discussed some women specific issues like being a mother; with one pregnant lady and another with a kid under two, at the table. We also discussed tips that affect everyone like setting boundaries. I enjoyed it and it was great to see everyone at my table participate!
There were approximately 50 attendees at the luncheon.
Mentoring Hub
The Mentoring Hub, organized by Souza and Real, offered 40 mentoring sessions for attendees to meet one-on-one with Devnexus speakers, Java Champions, open-source developers and other luminaries from the Java community. Topics included: Growing Beyond Senior; Writing Books and Teaching Courses; Getting Started with Open Source; From Engineer to DevRel and Grow Your Dev Career Building Visibility in the Java Community.
Hosted by the Atlanta Java Users Group (AJUG), led by Pratik Patel and Vincent Mayers, Devnexus has a rich history dating back to 2004 when the conference was originally called DevCon. The Devnexus name was introduced in 2010.
Patel announced that Devnexus 2027 will be held Monday-Wednesday, April 5-7, 2027.
Editor's Note
Michael Redlich attended Devnexus 2026 as an attendee and facilitated one of the Mentoring Hub sessions.