GitHub expands Copilot in Slack and Microsoft Teams with richer context and model switching

GitHub has expanded what its Copilot assistant can do inside Slack and Microsoft Teams, according to a changelog entry the company published on September 25, 2026. The update, released as a public preview, is meant to connect chat discussions more closely with the GitHub work that comes out of them.

In Slack, users can now point Copilot at supported files, attachments and links to specific messages so it can draw on them as context. On the Teams side, the assistant can read images placed inline, the content of forwarded messages, and the history of channels and threads. Before opening a new issue, Copilot now looks for existing ones that resemble it, and it links both to the work it produces and to the chat where the request started.

Users can also pick a different model for their next message, and that selection persists for the rest of the conversation. Slack users can additionally configure default owners and repositories. GitHub said it fixed several Slack problems, including issues with the repository picker and code channels, and changed repository switching so that older sessions can no longer keep operating on a previous repository.

The preview is open to organizations subscribed to the Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise plans. Activity through the integrations draws on the Copilot entitlements an organization already has, and spending can be controlled through the existing budgets for the Copilot cloud agent.