GitHub Copilot's Sept 28 change makes default code reviews cost more
Balanced replaces Lite as the default review level, spending more credits per PR — while chat retention goes permanent and Business seats turn prepaid Oct 1.
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Set Lite before Sept 28, or reviews cost more
On September 28, Copilot code review's default effort flips from Lite to Balanced, which runs a higher-reasoning model over more of your repo and spends more credits on every pull request. Teams left on 'Default' get the pricier reviews automatically — explicitly pick Lite before the 28th to keep the cheaper, faster behavior.
Chat history jumps from 28 days to forever
The same launch (no earlier than Sept 28) merges the cloud agent, github.com chat, and Mobile chat into one experience, on by default. github.com chat data that used to be dropped after 28 days is now retained for the life of your account — and opting out removes Copilot from github.com and Mobile entirely.
Business & Enterprise seats go prepaid Oct 1
Card- and PayPal-billed Copilot Business and Enterprise customers must pay for each seat before users get access, starting Oct 1 (new signups since Sept 1). Revoking a seat gets no prorated refund — it just drops next cycle — and overage usage now needs extra payment to keep working.
Copilot can now approve your PRs
Shipped Sept 1: admins can let Copilot code review approve pull requests it judges ready, not just leave comments. Paired with Balanced-by-default, that's a review bot doing heavier reasoning and able to hand out the green check — decide now whether you want a machine approving merges.
Elsewhere: Gemini reads long video for 88% fewer tokens
Google's agentic video understanding, live on Flash models via the Interactions and GenerateContent APIs, lets the model pull only the segments it needs — up to 88% fewer tokens than static processing on long-form clips. If full-length video analysis was pricing you out, it just got much cheaper.