GitHub said on October 19, 2026 that it has retired a set of models across most Copilot features, such as chat, code completion and agent mode. GitHub said it announced the change on September 18. It asked users to move their workflows and integrations to supported models. It said nothing needs to be done to remove the old ones.
The model list was not in the material reviewed, so readers should check GitHub's changelog for it. GitHub said Copilot Enterprise admins may need to switch on other models in their model policies. A model shows up in the picker in VS Code and on github.com once its policy is on. On October 15, GitHub separately said more models will be retired on November 16, 2026. It said Claude Opus 4.8 stays for individual subscribers on annual plans. For Business and Enterprise, GitHub said suggested replacements switch on by default. That holds unless an admin turned off the global default or blocked the model.
The model behind a coding tool is a dependency the vendor controls, and it comes with a retirement date. Leaders can ask who keeps the model inventory, which integrations name a specific model, and who reads the changelog.