Next.js Conf 2025: Exploring Next.js 16, Cache Components, and the AI SDK Ecosystem
Blazity
Next.js Conf
Our team had the pleasure of participating in Next.js Conf 2025 and Ship AI 2025 in San Francisco — two incredible events shaping the future of web development and artificial intelligence.
During the conferences, we hosted our own AMA (Ask Me Anything) session, where we had the opportunity to meet and connect with a wide range of attendees.
We engaged in fascinating discussions around modern web development and the integration of AI in today’s web ecosystem. From addressing entry-level questions to helping resolve advanced Next.js issues, the session was a great chance to share knowledge and exchange ideas with the community
Type-safe URL state in Next.js with nuqs - by François Best
A deep dive into using nuqs to make the URL a powerful, type-safe state manager in Next.js apps. We learned how this approach enhances shareability, navigation, and client-server interaction — and walked away with best practices (and pitfalls to avoid) from a live demo.
Why Your Consent Banner Should Be in Your Bundle - by Christopher Burns, creator of c15t.
A deep dive into treating consent as a first-class developer primitive: bundling your banner and consent logic with the app to avoid slow third-party CMPs. We learned how this approach simplifies implementation, improves performance, and makes consent management a natural part of the development process.
Next.js 16: A Game-Changing Release
A major highlight of Next.js Conf 2025 was the release of Next.js 16, marking a significant update to the framework. This version brings a wave of improvements across performance, caching, and developer experience. Some of the standout features include:
- Cache Components — a new caching model built on Partial Prerendering (PPR) and the
use cachedirective. It gives developers explicit, flexible control over what’s cached and when — combining the speed of static rendering with the power of dynamic data. - Next.js DevTools MCP — integrates the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable AI-assisted debugging, providing contextual insights, unified logs, and automatic error analysis directly within your development workflow.
- Turbopack (stable) — now the default bundler for all apps, delivering up to 10× faster Fast Refresh and 5× faster builds, along with new filesystem caching for even faster restarts.
- Enhanced Routing & Prefetching — improved layout deduplication and incremental prefetching drastically reduce network usage while keeping navigation instant.
- React Compiler Support (stable) — built-in automatic memoization for better runtime performance without manual optimization.
- Improved Caching APIs — new and refined APIs like updateTag(), revalidateTag(tag, profile), and refresh() for better control over dynamic data and stale-while-revalidate behavior.
- Simplified proxy.ts — replaces middleware.ts to make the app’s network boundary clearer and easier to manage.
Together, these features make Next.js 16 faster, smarter, and more aligned with the future of AI-native web development. With the combination of Cache Components, Turbopack, and AI DevTools, developers now have unprecedented performance and insight - all in a single framework.
The Power of the AI SDK Ecosystem
Beyond the sessions, one of the biggest takeaways for us was diving deeper into the AI SDK and its rapidly expanding ecosystem.
We explored how the AI SDK empowers developers to seamlessly integrate AI capabilities into their applications - from connecting custom models through the AI Gateway to orchestrating intelligent workflows using Agents.
During the workshops, we gained hands-on experience applying new SDK features for real-world use cases.
We learned how to leverage Agents to automate content analysis, enhance GEO insights, and improve brand visibility across AI-powered interfaces - all while keeping performance and developer experience front and center.
The flexibility of the AI SDK also opened our eyes to new possibilities: creating personalized AI-driven user experiences, improving internal developer tools, and even building lightweight agent-based utilities for monitoring and optimization.
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