GitHub Retires Six Copilot AI Models and Reopens Business and Enterprise Sign-Ups on the Same September 1 Deadline

Overview

GitHub Copilot enters September carrying two separate policy changes that both land on the same day. Effective September 1, 2026, GitHub is deprecating six AI models across every Copilot surface, and, per a second changelog post, it is reopening self-serve sign-ups for Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers who pay by credit card or PayPal.

Six Models Retired Across Every Copilot Surface

According to GitHub’s changelog, the company “will deprecate the following models across all GitHub Copilot experiences (including Copilot Chat, inline edits, ask and agent modes, and code completions), on September 1st, 2026”: Gemini 3.1 Pro, Claude Opus 4.5, Claude Opus 4.6, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.6, and Raptor Mini. GitHub lists a suggested alternative for each: Gemini 3.1 Pro moves to Gemini 3.6 Flash; both retiring Opus models point to Claude Opus 4.7, Claude Opus 4.8, or Claude Opus 5; both retiring Sonnet models point to Claude Sonnet 5; and Raptor Mini, Microsoft’s in-house small coding model, is succeeded by MAI-Code-1-Flash.

One carve-out applies to Claude Sonnet 4.6: GitHub says the model “will remain available to individual GitHub Copilot subscribers on annual plans so they retain a Sonnet offering,” and that “the deprecation of Claude Sonnet 4.6 does not apply to these customers.” Everyone else loses access to all six models on the September 1 cutoff. GitHub’s post also notes that Copilot Enterprise administrators “may need to enable access to the alternative model through their model policies in Copilot settings,” and that no action is required to remove the deprecated models once the date passes — they simply stop being selectable.

Business and Enterprise Sign-Ups Reopen the Same Day

In a changelog post published August 28, GitHub said that “starting September 1, 2026, GitHub will start reenabling sign-ups for new Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal.” The reopening follows a narrower pause GitHub had put in place months earlier: an April 22, 2026 changelog post had paused new self-serve sign-ups specifically for Copilot Business on organizations using GitHub’s Free and Team plans, while existing Copilot Business customers kept full access throughout.

The reopening comes bundled with a billing change. GitHub says “all new Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise seat assignments will require payment for each seat” before users gain access, and that the same upfront-payment requirement “will apply to existing Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers with a credit card or paypal payment method starting October 1, 2026.” In practice, that shifts assigned seats from a bill-after-use model to a pay-before-access one for both new and existing customers on those payment methods.

This is a distinct move from the changes GitHub made to its individual Copilot plans earlier this year. As previously reported, GitHub paused sign-ups for Copilot Pro, Pro+, and Student plans in April and shifted every individual plan to usage-based “AI Credits” billing on June 1. The September 1 changes described here apply only to the organization-facing Business and Enterprise tiers and to Copilot’s model lineup — the two threads GitHub has now pulled on, in sequence, since April.

What We Don’t Know

GitHub’s August 28 post covers additional policy changes taking effect later in September, but the company has not published further specifics on those beyond the two September 1 items described above, and this article does not report on them pending fuller detail. GitHub has also not disclosed sign-up or seat-assignment volume figures tied to either the original pause or the reopening.