March 2026: the month agents started working like owners
March made one thing clear: the conversation is no longer only about models or assistants, but about agents capable of operating on repositories, workflows, and real tasks. That does not mean humans are out of the loop, but it does mean the relationship is changing. We are moving from using AI for suggestions to delegating concrete work with supervision.
Using GitHub Copilot, .NET, Azure, VS Code, and applied AI as the main themes, here is a summary of what happened.
GitHub Copilot: from assistant to execution system
The strongest signal of the month came from the .NET modernization side. Microsoft showed how GitHub Copilot can work across assessment, planning, and upgrade execution in different environments: Visual Studio, VS Code, the terminal, and GitHub. At that point, the conversation stops being “Copilot suggests code” and becomes “Copilot analyzes, proposes a plan, and operates on a real codebase”.
Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/modernize-dotnet-anywhere-with-ghcp/
.NET: previews, urgent fixes, and assisted modernization
.NET 11 Preview 2
The second preview of .NET 11 arrived on March 10 with improvements across the runtime, SDK, libraries, ASP.NET Core, MAUI, EF Core, and containers. This was not a minor release. It shows the stack continuing to move forward on performance, cloud-native development, and developer experience at the same time.
Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/dotnet-11-preview-2/
.NET 10.0.5 as an OOB release
On March 12, an urgent fix shipped for a debugging issue on macOS that directly affected people using VS Code to develop with .NET. This kind of fix does not redefine the direction of the ecosystem, but it absolutely affects day-to-day work for a lot of developers.
Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/dotnet-10-0-5-oob-release-macos-debugger-fix/
Copilot as a modernization tool
The other major .NET message of the month was strategic: Copilot is starting to position itself as an enterprise modernization tool. Evaluating a repository, proposing a plan, generating upgrade tasks, and operating on versioned artifacts inside the project changes the kind of help we expect from AI.
Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/modernize-dotnet-anywhere-with-ghcp/
Azure + AI: infrastructure for agents, not just for models
Foundry published in March
The monthly Foundry post was published on March 6 and sent an important signal: the SDK, API, and tooling stack continues to consolidate around agentic applications. For .NET, this matters because the Foundry SDK also joins that convergence and reinforces the idea of a platform designed for agents, not just model consumption.
Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/foundry/whats-new-in-microsoft-foundry-feb-2026/
Azure Skills Plugin
The Azure Skills Plugin was announced on March 9, and to me this was one of the most interesting pieces of the month. An agent does not only need tools, it also needs operational knowledge packaged as skills. In other words, reusable experience that helps it make better decisions on Azure.
Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/all-things-azure/announcing-the-azure-skills-plugin/
MCP in .NET reaches v1.0
On March 5, version 1.0 of the official MCP SDK for C# was published. This reinforces another clear trend: .NET is not watching the agentic world from the outside. It is starting to gain formal building blocks for tools, servers, and experiences compatible with this model.
Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/release-v10-of-the-official-mcp-csharp-sdk/
Month conclusion
The most important points in March
- Copilot starts to validate itself as an agent that can work on real code.
- .NET 11 Preview 2 shows strong continuity in platform evolution.
- .NET 10.0.5 shows that tooling experience still matters a lot, especially on macOS + VS Code.
- Azure is aligning itself as a platform for agents, with skills, tooling, and MCP gaining momentum.
- The .NET and Azure ecosystem is starting to take concrete shape for building agents with real tools and protocols.