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GitHub Copilot: Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 3 Flash Deprecation

GitHub Copilot

GitHub announced it will retire Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 3 Flash from every GitHub Copilot experience, including Copilot Chat, inline edits, ask and agent modes, and code completions, on July 31, 2026. Developers on Gemini 2.5 Pro should migrate to Gemini 3.1 Pro, while Gemini 3 Flash users should move to Gemini 3.5 Flash ahead of the cutoff. Enterprise administrators must explicitly enable the replacement models through Copilot's model policy settings, since the deprecated models will be removed automatically once the deadline passes with no other manual steps required.

GitHub Retires Two Gemini Models From Copilot

GitHub confirmed that Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 3 Flash are being discontinued across all GitHub Copilot experiences on July 31, 2026. The retirement spans every surface where the models currently run, including Copilot Chat, inline edits, ask mode, agent mode, and code completions. This continues GitHub's ongoing pattern of cycling out older models in Copilot's lineup as newer, more capable versions become available, following similar retirements of other Gemini and Anthropic models earlier in 2026.

What's Changing and When

Once the July 31 deadline hits, both models disappear from Copilot automatically, GitHub says, "requiring no manual intervention" beyond migrating workflows beforehand. Developers who have scripts, extensions, or team conventions pinned to either model should treat this as a hard deadline rather than a soft recommendation, since access will not silently continue past that date.

Migrating to the Replacement Models

GitHub is pointing existing Gemini 2.5 Pro users toward Gemini 3.1 Pro, and existing Gemini 3 Flash users toward Gemini 3.5 Flash, positioning both as direct successors with comparable use cases. Developers using the standard Copilot Chat model selector in VS Code or on github.com will see the new models appear there once access is configured, making the switch largely a matter of reselecting a model rather than rewriting prompts or workflows.

What Enterprise Admins Need to Do

For Business and Enterprise deployments, the replacement models are not turned on by default. Administrators need to enable access to Gemini 3.1 Pro and Gemini 3.5 Flash through their organization's model policy settings in Copilot before the July 31 cutoff, otherwise their developers could lose Gemini access entirely once the deprecated models are removed. GitHub is directing enterprise customers with concerns to their account managers, and pointed community members toward GitHub Community discussions for feedback or questions about the transition.