GitHub Copilot Adds Experimental Voice Mode in VS Code
GitHub CopilotVS Code 1.137 introduced an experimental Voice Mode for GitHub Copilot that lets developers hold a live, spoken conversation with an agent while it works, including interrupting or redirecting it mid-task with a push-to-talk shortcut. Voice Mode stays aware of the active session, able to answer questions about the running task, the selected model, or attached files. It ships alongside VS Code 1.137's broader theme of making agents "ambient," running on schedules and reachable by voice without leaving the editor, and administrators can disable it by turning off Copilot preview features.
Key Takeaways
- Voice Mode lets developers hold a live spoken conversation with a working Copilot agent, distinct from Copilot's earlier speech-to-text dictation feature.
- Developers can interrupt or redirect the agent mid-task using a push-to-talk shortcut, without touching the keyboard.
- The feature is session-aware, able to answer spoken questions about the active task, selected model, or attached files.
- It ships as experimental in VS Code 1.137, enabled via the
agents.voice.enabledsetting. - Administrators can disable it organization-wide simply by turning off Copilot preview features, no dedicated policy required.
- It's one of three VS Code 1.137 features (alongside scheduled automations and repo-free Agents window PR review) pushing toward "ambient" agents that work with less direct supervision.
Sources & Mentions
2 external resources covering this update
Talking to an Agent While It Works
GitHub Copilot already offered built-in voice dictation for turning speech into typed text back in mid-2026, but Voice Mode, shipped experimentally in VS Code 1.137, is a different kind of feature: a live, two-way spoken conversation with an agent while it is actively working, not simply a way to speak instructions instead of typing them. A developer can talk to the agent, ask it questions about what it's currently doing, and, notably, interrupt it mid-response or redirect its approach entirely using a push-to-talk shortcut, all without touching the keyboard.
Voice Mode keeps context of the active session as it listens, so a developer can ask which model is handling the task, what files are attached, or what the agent is currently doing, and get a spoken answer grounded in that specific session rather than a generic response. Developers can also ask it to start an entirely new session by voice.
Getting Started, and Turning It Off
To try Voice Mode, a developer enables the agents.voice.enabled setting and selects the Voice Mode button in the chat input, or runs "Voice Mode: Show Introduction" from the Command Palette to pick a microphone and preview available voices. Right-clicking the Voice Mode button surfaces quick access to configuration, instructions, microphone selection, and transcript controls. For organizations that want to keep it off entirely, administrators can disable Voice Mode simply by turning off Copilot preview features at the org level, no separate policy is needed.
Part of a Bigger "Ambient Agents" Release
Voice Mode landed alongside two other VS Code 1.137 changes aimed at the same idea, letting Copilot work without a developer's constant, direct attention: scheduled recurring agent automations that can run hourly, daily, or weekly, and the ability to review issue and pull request details inside the Agents window even without the repository open. Of the three, coverage of the release has focused heavily on Voice Mode as the most immediately demonstrable of the bunch.