GitHub Copilot's September 28 overhaul lands today: unified experience, longer chat retention, pricier code review default
GitHub's September 28 Copilot changes take effect: a unified experience across chat, mobile, and cloud agent, life-of-account chat retention, and a pricier Balanced default for code reviews.
GitHub's biggest Copilot policy change of the year lands today, and it is three changes wearing one date. Starting September 28, GitHub is converging Copilot Chat on github.com, Copilot Chat in GitHub Mobile, and the Copilot cloud agent into a single unified experience governed by one policy, extending chat retention on github.com from 28 days to the life of the account, and switching the default effort level for Copilot code review from Lite to Balanced.
The details come from GitHub's August 28 changelog post, which has been the reference document for enterprise admins preparing for this date. The company says the unified experience will be enabled by default after launch. Admins who opt out will lose Copilot on github.com and GitHub Mobile entirely, so the "review the policy" step is not really optional.
The part that costs you money
The code review default is the change most teams will feel in their invoices. Copilot code review effort levels let reviewers choose how deep an AI review goes, and GitHub set Lite as the starting default when the levels launched. From today, any organization or repository still sitting on the "Default" value moves to Balanced, which does more thorough reviews and burns more AI credits per review.
GitHub is explicit about the escape hatch: if you want to stay on Lite, change the setting away from Default and explicitly select Lite in your repository or organization settings. GitHub says it will respect that selection and not switch it. But you have to make the choice; silence now means Balanced.
The part that changes your data retention posture
The unified experience migrates Copilot on github.com to the agent sessions model previously used only by the cloud agent. As part of that migration, chat data on github.com is retained for the life of the account instead of 28 days. If your compliance team signed off on 28-day retention, that sign-off is now stale and needs revisiting.
What to do today
If you administer Copilot Business or Enterprise: check which of your organizations and repositories still inherit the Default review effort, decide whether Balanced is worth the credit spend for routine repos, and pin Lite explicitly where it is not. Review the unified Copilot policy in Copilot settings on github.com before the rollout reaches you, and confirm your retention position with whoever owns records compliance.
A few related billing changes land nearby. GitHub is reenabling sign-ups for new Copilot Business and Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal, and starting October 1, existing card and PayPal customers move to upfront seat billing: assigned seats are charged at the start of the cycle, and revoking a seat no longer earns a prorated refund. Prices themselves are not changing, but the cash-flow mechanics are.
The throughline of all of this is that Copilot's enterprise controls keep getting more explicit, and the defaults keep getting more expensive. The admins who audited their settings before today will barely notice. Everyone else gets Balanced.
