Copilot models policy update - default on and enterprise teams targeting

[gpadak]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Product Feedback

Body

We are simplifying how enterprise customers control access to models in Copilot. The current policy experience is difficult to understand, difficult to target precisely, and difficult to evolve as we add more models. For GitHub Enterprise customers that have Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise licenses, we are changing a couple things:

Default on global policy for generally available models

We're introducing a global default enablement policy for all GA Copilot models for Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers. Instead of requiring admins to manually enable each new model as it ships, models that reach GA will be on by default with a single opt-out control for enterprises & organizations that need stricter governance.

Open-weight models and those that require data retention will not be automatically enabled, regardless of this global policy choice.

Rollout schedule

• July 29, 2026: the global policy is available but does not have effect. Access to unconfigured models stay as-is (disabled) for next 28 days.
• August 26th, 2026: Unconfigured models honor the global policy, on or off, and will state that they inherit the global policy decision. For most customers, this means those unconfigured models become available to their users.

AI administrators are always encouraged to make an explicit enable/disable decision for every model.

Enterprise teams targeting - public preview

We are launch a preview that changes models policy to directly support user-based governance flows. AI administrators can set a baseline of available models for the entire enterprise, and then allow additional models to specific enterprise teams. This allows model access differentiation based on job role, training level, or experimentation with new models by frontier teams.

At the enterprise level, models can be:

• enabled: available to all members of the enterprise
• disabled: not available to any member of the enterprise
• optional: models are available to be assigned to enterprise teams

Enterprise Teams model access evaluates in a least-restrictive strategy, which means that if a user gets a model from any one enterprise team the user will have access to the model everywhere.

This is an opt-in preview

Enabling this preview will replace a customers' existing models policy and organization (resource-based) decisions in favor of enterprise teams. There is a toggle to turn on "Enterprise teams mode" that will allow you to get started. The rollback strategy is to turn off "Enterprise teams mode", which will reset the customer's policy to the last configuration.

Tell us your thoughts

If you're an administrator, setting AI standards for your business, a developer, or any user of Copilot Business/Enterprise we'd love to hear from you.

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[Fadl84]

Hello,
To ensure predictable billing, it is crucial for us to estimate potential token consumption before an AI agent begins a task.
Additionally, we need a way to track actual consumption per task upon completion. This will allow us to accurately charge clients and manage bills across multiple parallel projects.

[FR-Frank-Ye]

It would be very helpful to tell us what exactly this new policy is called. I am having difficulties in finding it so I could review this change.

[925dk]

💯. When announcement email was sent it wasn't even there! Now it is (for me). Copilot -> Models. Top of page "Default availability for released models".

[FR-Frank-Ye]

Thanks! Now I see it too.

[Fozzibearr]

Hello, my name is Christopher Alan Kelly.

[oliveruhrig]

Does this functionality, of defining an enterprise team and granting it access to specific models include BKOY custom models?

[gpadak]

The models policy global default only covers the models included with your Copilot license and does not extend to those that are added via BYOK

[huntc]

I welcome this simplification as a user not really invested in the whos-who of models, but a couple of points:

1. "Default availability for released models" - there is no explicit definition of "released models". It would be nice to see a list of those, or at least an explanation.
2. Once a model is enabled or disabled, it can no longer be set to "Unconfigured" (inherits default). The dropdown of each model should provide this third setting.