ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript: Building AI Assistants | #EsriDevTech2026

Learn how you can build an AI assistant for a web application using the framework being developed in the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript. Speakers discuss key terminology, how to use the components and out-of-the-box workflows built in to the SDK, how to define your own workflows specific to your application, and how to leverage the client-side capabilities of the browser and the SDK to make the best possible experience for your users. Presenters: Kristian Ekenes and Dhrumil Shah Resources =========== Proceedings: https://registration.esri.com/flow/es... ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript documentation: https://developers.arcgis.com/javascr... Questions? We'd love to answer them on Esri Community! 💬 Community forums: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-... 📹 More Esri Developer and Technology Summit 2026 videos ============= Mediaspace (all): https://mediaspace.esri.com/channel/2... 🕑 Chapters ============ 00:00 Intro 00:09 Overview 01:13 Agenda 01:44 Why AI in web mapping is different 04:49 Demo 12:22 Architecture and orchestration 16:53 Developer experience 23:47 Web map setup 32:22 Esri-provided agents 37:22 Demo: Custom agent 53:01 Questions 53:10 Is there an indication on the web map class if it has embeddings generated? 53:42 Let's say you have your web map persisted and you load it into the app and you add additional layers. Is the assistant going to be aware of those additional layers? 54:25 Is there a size limitation for the layers? 55:28 Do you plan to support custom models? 55:56 Whenever you enter a prompt does it use the features that have been cached on the client or the server? 56:27 For editing, does it take into account the users' permission roles? 57:10 Are the embeddings being searched on the front or the back end? 58:20 If you have external services or models you want to connect to, can you do that in the custom agent workflow? 58:43 Did you create your own model? 59:24 Within the out-of-the-box agents can we change models? 59:55 What models get updated and how do we communicate that? 👉 Follow us ============= 🔔 Subscribe to Esri Developers on YouTube:    / @esridevs   🔴 Videos at Esri Mediaspace: https://bit.ly/3MXWbqq ❎ @EsriDevs on X: https://x.com/EsriDevs ❎ @EsriDevEvents on X: https://x.com/EsriDevEvents ❎ @EsriStartups: https://x.com/EsriStartups 🐙 GitHub: https://github.com/esri & https://github.com/EsriDevEvents 🏷️ Tags ============= #esridevtech2026 #developers #maps #mapping #webmapping #esri #arcgis #geodev #gis #geospatial #spatialdata #geospatialdata #spatialanalysis #arcgisenterprise #webgis #geo #locationintelligence #javascript #web #arcgisonline #arcgislocationservices #components #DevTechSummit #AI #aiassistant #customagent #custommodel #LLM