GitHub to Merge Copilot Chat Surfaces and Overhaul Business/Enterprise Billing
GitHub announced a significant restructuring of GitHub Copilot’s chat surfaces, policies, and billing on August 28, 2026, with changes rolling out between September and October that will affect every Copilot Business and Enterprise customer.
Details
- Unified Copilot experience: no earlier than September 28, 2026, Copilot Chat on github.com, Copilot Chat in GitHub Mobile, and GitHub Copilot cloud agent will merge into a single unified Copilot experience, replacing the separate policies that currently govern each
- Chat history retention change: under the unified experience, chat data is retained for the lifetime of the account, up from the current 28-day retention on github.com; opting out of unification means losing Copilot access on both surfaces
- New signups reopen: starting September 1, 2026, GitHub will reenable signups for new Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal, under stricter account vetting
- Upfront seat billing: effective October 1, 2026, all new and existing Copilot Business/Enterprise seat assignments require payment upfront at the start of the billing cycle, replacing the previous mid-cycle proration; prices are unchanged and no refunds are issued for revoked seats
- Code review default shifts: effective September 28, 2026, the default review effort level for Copilot code review changes from “Lite” to “Balanced,” though organizations can explicitly keep “Lite” if they choose
- Admin action required: enterprise admins are told to review policy compliance ahead of the September 28 deadline
What happened next
The billing change is the more consequential shift for finance and IT teams managing large Copilot deployments, since upfront per-seat charges change cash-flow timing even though list prices stay flat. Combined with the Copilot Chat unification and the code-review default change, GitHub is consolidating what had become a fragmented set of Copilot experiences and policies into one governed surface, with enterprise admins given roughly a month’s notice to adjust settings before the changes take effect.