Intel / article

Claude Sonnet 5.5 reaches general availability in GitHub Copilot

Source: github.blog
Author: GitHubTop Viber
Date: Published Sep 28, 2026

Context

GitHub has made Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 5.5 generally available in Copilot for Pro, Pro+, Max, Business and Enterprise users, according to its changelog. GitHub says the model is designed for well-scoped everyday work such as building features and fixing bugs. The rollout is gradual, so some users may not see it in the model picker yet.

GitHub highlights efficiency. In its own early testing, Sonnet 5.5 matched Claude Sonnet 5 on coding tasks while using significantly fewer steps, and tool calls, and it finished tasks noticeably faster. The changelog gives no figures or test details and cites no independent , so the size of those gains is not stated.

The model is billed at provider list pricing under usage-based billing. Business and Enterprise administrators manage access through the model policy in Copilot settings, where new models are enabled by default unless an administrator has turned off that global default or disabled this model.

Terms in this piece · Glossary

token — The chunk of text a model reads and writes in — roughly three-quarters of a word — and the unit AI usage is billed in.
eval — A repeatable test for AI quality — a set of tasks plus scoring — used the way software teams use test suites, because model output is too variable to judge by eyeballing.
AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.

Read the source github.blog