This year marked an exciting milestone as we hosted the third edition of DEVSummit in Bengaluru. The energy, innovation, and collaboration witnessed throughout the event made it our most impactful gathering yet. What started as a two-day developer meetup two years ago has grown into a four-day immersive experience, attracting a larger, more diverse group of professionals. The enthusiasm, innovation, and teamwork displayed during the event made it our most significant and impactful gathering to date.
With over 3,000 participants across four days, DEVSummit 2026 became one of India's largest developer events focused on insurance tech and AI. We divided it into two editions: Innovator (days 1-2) and Explorer (days 3-4). The event showcased massive participation and a shared goal to build a future-ready, AI-driven insurance ecosystem.
Throughout the event, developers, students, technology leaders, and insurance professionals came together for hands-on workshops, coding sessions, technical deep dives, expert panels, and interactive learning experiences. The conversations consistently centered around one key idea: how we can build beyond traditional boundaries and prepare the insurance industry for the opportunities and responsibilities that come with AI.
DEVTrails: Innovation with Real-World Impact
One of the defining highlights of this year’s summit was the finale of DEVTrails, our pan-India university hackathon initiative.
The response exceeded every expectation. More than 18,000 students from 30 universities participated in collaboration with the National Insurance Academy and EY India. Together, we challenged students to solve a meaningful and timely problem: designing an AI-powered parametric insurance solution for India’s growing gig workforce.
What truly amazed our audience, and even our own technology experts, was the level of sophistication in what these students created. The finalists showcased cutting-edge engineering, including large language models, GPS-based location verification with anti-spoofing measures, behavioral pattern analysis for fraud detection, blockchain technology for unalterable claim records, and predictive risk models driven by real-time weather data.
These weren't just slide presentations; they were fully operational systems. I was impressed by how clearly the participants recognized that technological innovation is ultimately designed to serve people. Their solutions focused on improving financial resilience for millions of underserved workers.
The top five finalist teams, representing institutions including SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, and Sai Eshwar Engineering College, presented their ideas during the Grand Finale DemoJam and showcased extraordinary creativity, technical depth, and purpose-driven innovation. We are thrilled to announce this year's winners:
- Winner: Astro Bugs — SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST), Chennai
- First Runner-up: Mog Squad — Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore
- Second Runner-up: Code Mavens — SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST), Chennai
Leadership, Collaboration, and Inspiration
This year's keynote stage set the tone for everything that followed. The summit was special for the presence of our executive leaders, Mike Rosenbaum, Chief Executive Officer, and Diego Devalle, Chief Product Development Officer.
Diego opened the summit by sharing a vision for the future of cloud technology, AI, and platform innovation in insurance, emphasizing their importance for customers and the industry.
He then unveiled, for the very first time, DEVSpace, a futuristic developer environment introduced alongside Kyle Moore, Senior Staff Engineer, that fundamentally changes how Guidewire developers get started. With DEVSpace, the local Integrated Development Environment (IDE) remains on the user's machine, while InsuranceSuite runs remotely in a Guidewire-managed environment. This setup eliminates multi-day configurations, environment drift, and the need for high-spec laptops. Developers can simply open their editor and start building.
Diego previewed the Capstones for the summit, featuring live demonstrations from Ben Chang, Vice President of Engineering, Application Platform, and Eric Teng, Director of Product Management, who showcased our new Extensions architecture. Pablo Bermejo, Principal Product Manager, and Diego Mendonça, Director of Engineering, introduced Jutro Studio — building a real, production-ready digital experience live, from spoken instruction to a fully wired page in seconds. Every demo was conducted live, setting a high standard for engagement.
Immediately after, I moderated a live Q&A with Mike and Diego, a conversation that captured the energy we aimed for: curious, technical, and forward-looking.
We were also honored to welcome acclaimed Indian actor, writer, producer, and director R. Madhavan as a guest speaker. His reflections on creativity, resilience, and continuous learning resonated deeply with our audience and added another inspiring dimension to the event.
Learning at the Epicenter
DEVSummit focused on learning through doing, not watching. The summit was built around hands-on activities, with every Building Block, every Capstone, and every session encouraging participants to build alongside speakers.
The Building Blocks showcased our key emerging technologies, each delivered through interactive sessions. Attendees didn't just learn about the new Extensions architecture; they actively used it, experiencing how managed and unmanaged modules update smoothly and can accelerate build times by up to tenfold. They created fully functional digital experiences in Jutro Studio using plain-language prompts, pasted mockups, and even hand-drawn sketches. Attendees developed AI agents on the Guidewire AI Framework that can reason, select appropriate tools, and perform actions across policy, billing, and claims, not just chat. Participants also coordinated cross-application workflows using the low-code Autopilot Workflow Designer and Rules Designer, enabling deployment without any recompilation. Additionally, they modeled products in Advanced Product Designer, authored business rules with AI support, and extended shared APIs via Schema Editor — all seamlessly integrated into PolicyCenter.
The Capstones culminated in longer builds where participants developed extensions via AppManager and AppConsole, previewed the upcoming Developer Isolation model, and created governed, real-time dashboards with Data Studio, Explore, and the AI Developer Assistant. In the Digital Capstone, they extended a Commercial Auto product end-to-end by adding a schema field, writing a Cloud Rules-driven Fleet Safety Score, and observing live quote assessments in Jutro Studio, all without frontend coding. The Explorer Edition introduced dedicated streams for QA and Business Analysts, emphasizing teamwork in insurance tech. By week’s end, participants built real, impactful solutions on real platforms.
Looking Ahead
DEVSummit has evolved beyond a technology conference. It is now a growing community of innovators, builders, students, and industry leaders united by a shared belief that technology can help create a more resilient and inclusive insurance ecosystem.
As AI continues to reshape our industry, the importance of collaboration and responsible innovation will only increase. The momentum we experienced at DEVSummit 2026 gives me tremendous optimism for what lies ahead.
To everyone who participated, contributed ideas, mentored teams, and helped make this event possible, thank you for building beyond with us.