GitHub Copilot Adjusts Strategy: Introduces Advanced Model Usage Limits and New Payment Scheme

Recently, the Microsoft-affiliated GitHub to its popular AI programming assistant GitHub Copilot s service strategy has been adjusted, introducing new usage limits and a charging mechanism for some advanced AI modeling features. This change could mean that for users seeking more powerful AI capabilities, theGitHub Copilot The cost of use will increase.

GitHub declare to be GitHub Copilot Introducing the "premium requests" mechanism. This mechanism states that when a user chooses to use the base model (currently OpenAI's GPT-4o) other than more advanced AI models (e.g., the Anthropic (used form a nominal expression) Claude 3.7 SonnetThe rate limits apply when performing specific tasks, such as "agentic coding" or editing operations involving multiple files.GitHub Copilot Subscribing users can still enjoy unlimited operations when using the base model.

The specific quotas and the schedule for their entry into force are set out below:

• Copilot Pro Subscribers ($20 per month): starting May 5, 2025, will receive 300 Premium Requests per month.
• Copilot Business Users: Starting between May 12 and 19, 2025, they will receive 300 premium requests per month.
• Copilot Enterprise Users: Starting May 12-19, 2025, they will receive 1,000 Premium Requests per month.

After exceeding the free quota, users have the option to pay for additional premium requests on a volume basis at a unit price of $0.04 per request. Meanwhile.GitHub Introducing the new Copilot Pro+ The program, which costs $39 per month, includes 1,500 premium requests and claims to provide access to "best-of-breed models," including OpenAI's GPT-4.5The

It is worth noting thatGitHub The tweak took place at another AI programming platform Devin after raising rates for some users. The analysis suggests that the impact on Copilot The imposition of fees or restrictions on more powerful modeling capabilities may reflect the higher computational costs behind these advanced models. For example, models like Claude 3.7 Sonnet Such inference models require more time for fact-checking, which improves reliability but also significantly increases the computational resources required to run them.

Despite the introduction of new charge points, the GitHub Copilot It is not a loss-making business per se. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had said in August 2024 thatCopilot contributed GitHub With more than 40% of revenue growth that year, its business has grown larger than Microsoft's acquisition about seven years ago. GitHub overall size at the time. Therefore, this adjustment is more likely to be a value layering strategy based on modeled capabilities and costs rather than simply making up losses.

Agent Mode and MCP support are fully available in VS Code.

Along with price strategy adjustments, theGitHub Copilot features have also received significant upgrades. The most notable of these are Agent Mode(proxy model) in the Visual Studio Code (VS Code) in the promotion to all users, and added the MCP (Model Context Protocol) Support.

Agent Mode aim Copilot A stronger "agent" capability that automatically recognizes and executes a series of subtasks across multiple files based on the user's instructions to reach the final goal. Compared to the previous chat or multi-file editing features, theAgent Mode Instead of just making code suggestions, it can actually take action, such as suggesting terminal commands, invoking tools, and even having the ability to analyze runtime errors and fix itself. This mode is chosen by the user of the Claude 3.5,Claude 3.7 Sonnet,Google Gemini 2.0 Flash maybe OpenAI GPT-4o and other model drivers. It is claimed that the use of Claude 3.7 Sonnet (used form a nominal expression) Agent Mode Achieved a pass rate of 56.0% in the SWE-bench Verified benchmark. Users can upgrade to the latest version of VS Code and enable the feature in the settings.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) can be viewed as providing the Agent Mode An interface that provides external capabilities and contextual information, similar to a "smart USB port". Through the MCP, theAgent Mode Different tools can be invoked to handle specific tasks, such as understanding database schemas, querying web information, accessing GitHub warehouse data, etc., which enables more sophisticated interactive and context-aware programming support.GitHub Also released an open source local GitHub MCP server, which allows developers to place GitHub features (e.g., searching repositories, managing issues, creating PRs) into any MCP-enabled LLM tool. MCP server resources are also starting to emerge in the community, such as the awesome-mcp-servers The repository collects a number of available servers.

Other Updates and Model Options

GitHub The official availability (General Availability, GA) of the following updates was also announced:

• Multi-model selection: Through the premium requests mechanism, the user can now add a new user request to the Copilot Anthropic was formally selected for the Claude 3.5,3.7 Sonnet,3.7 Sonnet Thinking(math.) genusGoogle (used form a nominal expression) Gemini 2.0 Flashas well as OpenAI (used form a nominal expression) o3-mini and other models. As mentioned earlier, the use of these models will consume advanced request quotas, while the base model GPT-4o s use remains unrestricted on paid plans.
• Copilot Code Review Agent: The code review agent, which was previously in preview, is now officially available and has reportedly been used by more than 1 million developers during the preview period.
• Next Edit Suggestions:: The Next Edit Suggestion feature for code completion is also now available, designed to improve the efficiency of continuous coding.

These updates coincide with the release of Microsoft's 50th anniversary.GitHub Emphasizing that from BASIC,MS-DOS until (a time) .NET Framework,VS Codeand then to acquisitions GitHub, Microsoft has always been a developer-centric company.GitHub Copilot This development is seen as a key step towards realizing the vision of "one billion developers worldwide".