Visual Studio 2026 doubles down on AI-assisted coding

Microsoft has released its first preview of the Visual Studio 2026 IDE through the company’s new Insiders channel, which replaces the old Preview channel for early access to upcoming features. The new IDE offers deeper integration of the GitHub Copilot AI coding assistant, including a profiler agent that analyzes performance and suggests fixes.

Visual Studio 2026 Insiders, announced September 9, can be downloaded at visualstudio.microsoft.com/insiders/. In addition to AI “woven directly into the developer workflow,” Visual Studio 2026 features snappier performance and a modern design that makes the environment feel lighter and more focused, according to Microsoft.

Working alongside GitHub Copilot, the Profiler Agent in Visual Studio 2026 helps developers understand and fix performance issues without needing to be a profiling expert, according to release notes. The Profiler Agent can analyze CPU usage, memory allocations, and runtime behavior, along with surfacing performance bottlenecks, and suggest optimizations. Further, developers now can bring their own language models to Visual Studio Chat, while improved code search capabilities in Copilot Chat promise to give developers more relevant results.

Also featured in Visual Studio 2026 is a cleaner and more modern interface that is consistent with the Fluent UI design system, providing a workspace that feels calm and intentional, Microsoft said. New color themes make the environment more comfortable for long sessions and more accessible by default. An adaptive paste capability saves time and reduces effort by automatically adjusting pasted code to fit the context of existing code, minimizing the need for manual modifications, Microsoft said.

Visual Studio 2026 installs side-by-side with earlier versions. Developers using Visual Studio 2022 can import components and settings to start coding immediately.

Other improvements in Visual Studio 2026 Insiders include:

The debugger now displays inline post-return values, showing actual return values of functions where they are used.

A Quick Find feature lets users search within string values in the Text Visualizer.

Comments now render via Markdown formatting, thus making it easier to read and format feedback.

Code coverage is now included in the Community and Professional editions.