What happened
GitHub announced three separate changes to Copilot’s policies and billing, all landing between September 1 and October 1, 2026.
For chat access, no earlier than September 28, GitHub is replacing several separate Copilot policies with a single unified policy covering Copilot Chat on github.com, GitHub Mobile, and Cloud Agent (Copilot’s own version that runs coding tasks on GitHub’s servers instead of your machine). As github.com chat moves to agent sessions, its conversation history moves from being automatically deleted after 28 days to being kept for the lifetime of your GitHub account. The new policy turns on by default once it ships. GitHub says you can opt out, but opting out also turns off Copilot Chat entirely on github.com and GitHub Mobile.
Second, starting September 1, GitHub is reopening Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise signups for customers who pay by credit card or PayPal, but with a catch: every new seat now requires payment upfront before the assigned person gets access. Starting October 1, that upfront-per-seat charge also applies to existing Business and Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal, billed at the start of each cycle. Listed prices aren’t changing, but revoking a seat still doesn’t get you a prorated refund (a partial refund adjusted for the time left in the billing period), and mid-cycle seat additions are still prorated the way they are today.
Third, also effective September 28, GitHub is changing the default effort level for its automated pull request review from “Lite” to “Balanced,” for existing and new repositories and organizations using the Default effort setting. Explicit Lite selections are respected. A pull request is a proposed code change waiting for review before it merges into the main codebase, and Copilot’s review agent can read and comment on that change automatically.
Why it matters
The retention change affects how long web chat context remains stored. Copilot Chat conversations routinely include real code, error messages, and sometimes secrets pasted in while debugging, like a stray API key or database password copied into a message to ask “why isn’t this working.” The announcement replaces the 28-day retention period for github.com chat with account-lifetime retention as it moves to agent sessions.
Opting out of the new retention policy also means losing Copilot Chat access on github.com and GitHub Mobile. That’s a real trade-off: keep indefinite retention of your chat history, or lose part of the product. Review the unified policy against your team’s retention requirements before leaving it enabled.
The billing change matters if you’re the one managing seats on a Business or Enterprise plan. Paying upfront per seat, rather than at the next natural billing cycle, changes when money leaves your account, and because revoked seats aren’t refunded, assigning a seat to a short-term contractor and removing them a week later still costs you the full cycle.
The code review default matters if you lean on Copilot’s automated review to catch problems in pull requests before a human looks. Balanced is intended for deeper review than Lite. Compare findings, time, and billed usage on your own pull requests.
Who should care
Anyone who has ever pasted real code, an error message, or credentials into Copilot Chat on github.com or the mobile app should read the retention change carefully, independent of whether they manage a team plan. People who assign or remove Copilot Business or Enterprise seats need to plan around the new upfront charge before October 1. Teams that rely on Copilot’s default pull request review settings should expect reviews to behave differently after September 28.
What builders should do next
The announcement scheduled these changes for September and October. Check the policy currently shown in your Copilot settings rather than assuming it is still pending.
Keep real secrets, such as API keys or passwords, out of chat. If you have shared one, revoke or rotate it; deleting a chat is not a substitute.
If you manage Copilot Business or Enterprise seats, audit your current seat assignments before October 1 and revoke anyone who no longer needs one. Trimming unused seats before the new upfront-per-cycle charge takes effect avoids paying for seats you’d otherwise let lapse unnoticed.
If your team depends on fast turnaround from Copilot’s automated pull request review, check whether your repository or organization uses Default, which moves to Balanced, or an explicit effort selection. Choose the setting based on review depth, turnaround time, and billed usage.
End of article