Launching the inaugural Mac Admins User Group Paris meetup during Apple annual developer conference week was quite a challenge… but a good one, and I must really thank all the Jamf team for helping us to make it happen in such a short time! As a long time Mac user, I loved the energy from Apple Expo in the old days. Since its termination, Paris has long needed a localized hub for Apple IT professionals to connect face-to-face. I worked on different Mac admins events in the past (Command IT, Gete.Net Connect), but I felt that choosing WWDC 2026 as our kickoff theme for this new Paris User Group provided the perfect catalyst, uniting the community around massive technical shifts.
WWDC 2026 Highlights for Mac Admins
Apple made it absolutely clear this year that Declarative Device Management, aka DDM, is no longer just the future, but the present standard. Hopefully, the message was well sent, and as our favorite management tools have been updated to use DDM properly, and this transition should not be too complicated to manage. I mean… I had to deal with transitions to PowerPC, to Mac OS X, then to Intel, then to Apple Silicon, so I don't really worry about this one ;-)
Additionally, Apple unveiled highly anticipated updates to Apple Business, introducing bulk volume licensing for app subscriptions (yay, finally!). For regulated industries, the introduction of granular DDM configuration surfaces for Apple Intelligence and Siri was a massive win, letting IT control exactly how AI features operate on managed endpoints. And of course, some features like binary management and especially the ability to remove software should make a major difference in day-to-day management. And of course, extremely welcomed new features that should push Platform SSO in the future, or advances in FileVault management with its new Guest mode.
Special Guest Presentation
We also had the pleasure of welcoming Matthieu Castel from Jamf, who treated the audience to an exclusive sneak peek of the newly announced Jamf AI Governance tool. As organizations rapidly adopt generative AI tools, managing shadow AI and securing background CLI or IDE extensions has become a top priority for IT and security teams. Matthieu demonstrated how this new native, macOS-level control plane provides deep visibility into on-device AI usage, enforces granular access policies across local models, and generates audit-ready compliance reporting directly from the endpoint. https://www.jamf.com/blog/what-is-ai-governance/
First Event Recap & Community Energy
There was plenty of positive energy in the room, packed with well-known sysadmins, consultants… and loads of pizzas! Attendees immediately dove into interesting discussions about the shift from legacy configuration profiles to declarative assets, but it was also the occasion to discuss the many challenges Apple admins deal with every day, as the technology evolves incredibly fast, while the security risks are always higher. Beyond discussing technical headaches, the event served as a reminder of how valuable it is to share real-world solutions with local peers who understand the specific compliance and infrastructure challenges unique to the French enterprise ecosystem. As I love to say: "everything that should be said was said… and everything that should have not be said… well, was said anyway". And I think that's how we should tackle most issues: with honest discussions within our community. That's how we build great things.
