I was in the audience in Austin when DHH opened Rails World 2026. The conference tagline was “Shaping the future of Ruby on Rails,” so I walked in expecting to hear about the future of Rails.

That’s not quite what happened.

The opening keynote was almost entirely about AI agents. DHH told the room that 37signals has gone “pencils down” on writing code by hand, that HEY is moving to native apps with a Rust backend, and that he has retired as a professional programmer.

The next day, he sat down with Matz and Jeremy Daer for Ruby, Rails, and the future of programming, which went even further down the same path.

In this article, I recap both sessions, share where I disagree with them, and explain why I’m still excited about where Rails is going.

There is a lot going on behind the scenes to make Rails faster and more secure, and to give the view layer some much-needed attention.

Read more here: DHH, AI, and the Future of Rails