GitHub Copilot will remove four models from chat, edits and completions

GitHub said on 3 September that four models will be deprecated across every Copilot experience on 2 October: Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini 3.6 Flash, Kimi K2.7 Code, and Claude Opus 4.7. The changelog names a replacement for each, and lists the exact surfaces the retirement covers.

What is going away and what replaces it

Google's Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini 3.6 Flash both retire in favour of Gemini 3.8 Flash, which GitHub added to Copilot the same day. Kimi K2.7 Code will be replaced by Kimi K3, and Claude Opus 4.7 by Claude Opus 5. All four end dates fall on 2 October.

The removal is not partial. GitHub is deprecating these models "across all GitHub Copilot experiences (including Copilot Chat, inline edits, ask and agent modes, and code completions)." A user who has one of the deprecated models pinned in the Chat model selector, or a script that requests it by name, will stop being able to use it on that date.

What administrators may need to do first

Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise administrators may need to enable access to the replacement models through their organisation's Copilot model policies. GitHub says an administrator can verify availability in the organisation or enterprise Copilot model settings, confirm that the policy is enabled for the specific model, and then users will see the model in the Copilot Chat model selector.

That step is worth pointing out because changing the name alone may not be enough. In an organisation with a locked model policy, the new model may not appear until the admin has allowed it, and a user who does not know that will read the change as Copilot being broken.

Once 2 October passes, GitHub says no action is required to remove the deprecated models: they will stop being available.

For a solo Copilot user, this is a change on a specific date. For a team, three things are worth checking before 2 October. First, any workflow or CI script that names one of the four models has to be updated. Second, prompts and evals that were tuned against a specific model may not behave the same on its replacement, and the newer model is not a direct replacement for every use, especially for teams that had chosen Claude Opus 4.7 for its long-context behaviour. Third, in an enterprise, the model policy has to name the replacement model and be applied before the old one disappears, otherwise developers find an empty model list on the morning of the change.

The changelog does not name new pricing tiers or add or remove per-request charges. It is a simple change of model identifiers.

Source

• Upcoming deprecation of selected GitHub Copilot models, GitHub Changelog, 3 September 2026