GitHub is expanding the model choices in Copilot, opening Claude Fable 5.1 to subscribers on the Pro+, Max and Business tiers plus Enterprise customers, while Gemini 3.8 Flash reaches those tiers and Copilot Pro. The company detailed the changes in its weekly Copilot release notes published this week.
The update also brings new capabilities to the coding assistant. The Copilot app and command-line interface now honor content exclusions, and the Copilot harness is generally available in Copilot for JetBrains. In VS Code 1.136, Agent Merge enters public preview, while multi-root workspaces and chat backgrounds are now experimental. Chat sessions have been reorganized into a hierarchy to group related conversations.
Read more: Microsoft Revokes Internal Claude Code Licenses and Pushes Engineers to GitHub Copilot
These releases follow GitHub's recent introduction of GPT-6 Astra, which is now generally available in Copilot and designed for long-horizon autonomous coding. The company also launched the schedule for its two-day GitHub Universe 2026 event.
The announcements come after GitHub experienced a significant outage on August 17 that lasted 7 hours and 47 minutes, disrupting github.com, authentication, Actions, APIs, pull requests, issues, and Copilot. It was the second major incident that month, following an August 6 failure in Actions.
GitHub's Copilot updates are part of a broader push by Microsoft into AI-assisted development. Earlier in August, Microsoft's Excel update added Copilot change history and Python tools, rolling out across Windows, Mac, and web. Productivity research cited in earlier coverage suggests Copilot can save users 2 to 4 hours a week, and CEO Satya Nadella uses it daily to prepare for meetings.
