GitHub Copilot Fusion Release

At GitHub Universe on Oct 28, 2026, GitHub made Copilot Fusion generally available, letting Copilot route and combine models at three effort levels instead of a model picker, with model costs 30% off through Nov 30, 2026. The same day GitHub Enterprise began including Copilot, and Copilot Standalone went on sale at $10 a user a month.

GitHub made Copilot Fusion generally available on Oct 28, 2026, at its Universe conference: instead of picking a model, a GitHub Copilot user picks an effort level, Fusion Standard, High or Max, and Copilot chooses and combines models for the task. Fusion has no fee of its own, each model it calls is billed at its usual rate, and through Nov 30, 2026 paid plans get 30% off those model costs. The same day GitHub changed who pays for Copilot: it is now included for licensed GitHub Enterprise Cloud users, and Copilot Standalone costs $10 a user a month for companies without that license.

How Fusion works

1:26 GitHub's own recap of the Universe keynote puts it in one line: asked on stage which model to pick, the keynote's host answers "You should use Copilot Fusion", then names the three patterns and the score of 60, "at half the cost per task".

From GitHub's changelog and docs:

Three patterns. Single sends the task to one model; Cascade starts with a cheaper model and escalates; Critique has one model check another's work.
Three effort levels, which decide how far Fusion goes: Standard, High and Max. A fourth, Fusion Fast, exists only in VS Code's inline chat.
GitHub's own number. "In the Artificial Analysis Coding Agent Index, Fusion Max scored 60", which GitHub puts within two points of Claude Code running Claude Opus 5.5 at Max effort, at about half the cost and tokens and in 40% less time.
Old picks carry over. Auto, HydraFusion and HydraFusion Max become the matching Fusion level, and admins can keep a model out of Fusion without turning it off.
No context window of its own. Copilot shows the smallest window among the models Fusion is using.

Which plans get which level

Level	Plans
Fusion Standard	Free, Student, Pro, Pro+, Max, Business, Enterprise
Fusion High	Pro+, Max, Business, Enterprise
Fusion Max	Max, Business, Enterprise

Source: Copilot Fusion docs, read Nov 8, 2026. It works in VS Code, the Copilot CLI, the Copilot app and JetBrains IDEs. GitHub states no rate limits for it.

What Copilot costs since Oct 28

Self-serve plans, read Nov 8, 2026: Free $0; Pro $10 a month with $15 of AI credits; Pro+ $39 with $70; Max $100 with $200; one credit is one cent. The Universe changes are for companies (GitHub changelog):

GitHub Enterprise includes Copilot for every licensed Enterprise Cloud user who works with a GitHub account team, with the features and models of Copilot Enterprise.
Copilot Standalone, $10 a user a month, gives companies without GitHub Enterprise the same features.
Both meter usage from the first request against the company's budget, with no monthly credits per seat, and "An exhausted budget never removes access": completions and next edit suggestions keep working.
Sales only for now: self-serve sign-up is "unavailable", with dates promised "in the coming weeks". Copilot Business and Enterprise stay on sale.

What else shipped at Universe

GitHub shipped more than a dozen Copilot changes that day. The ones a Copilot user meets first:

Copilot Projects, a public preview in the Copilot app: describe a goal, add repositories, mocks or meeting notes, and several agents return pull requests. The app also gained computer use on macOS and Windows, in preview, with an approval asked for each app (changelog).
One cloud experience. Sessions follow you across github.com, GitHub Mobile, the CLI, the app, VS Code, Slack and Teams, each in a cloud sandbox with no one-hour limit on running time; sandbox billing starts in November 2026 from one dollar-based Actions pool (changelog).
Copilot Memory, generally available on paid plans, and Dreaming, an opt-in preview in which Copilot proposes updates to its own instructions as pull requests and spends AI credits doing it (changelog).
Code review Max, a preview that runs several review agents on models from different providers, and Copilot approvals that can count toward a repository's required reviews, off by default (changelog).

What we think

We think GitHub keeps a discount on Fusion's model costs after Nov 30, 2026, at a lower rate or for Max alone. GitHub's own pitch for Fusion Max is that it does Claude Code's work at about half the cost, and that comparison is weaker at full price; a cut that ends while rivals price per seat would push heavy users to compare again (Best AI Coding Agent).

Confidence: Possible. Check by: Jan 2027.

We expect Copilot Standalone to open for self-serve sign-up by the end of January 2027 at the same $10, making it the cheapest way for a company to buy a coding agent per seat, below Cursor and Claude Code's team plans.

Confidence: Likely. Check by: Jan 2027.