At CppCon 2026, we shared how Visual Studio is evolving to help you work more effectively with large C++ codebases, improve build and runtime performance, adopt the latest language features, and incorporate AI into your existing workflows. This post is a companion reading guide for our session, C++ in the Age of AI: How Visual Studio Is Evolving, with links to learn more about the features and improvements we discussed.
We will update this post with the YouTube video once the recording of the talk is available.
What’s new in Visual Studio 2026
These two release roundups provide the most complete overview of what has changed for C++ developers in Visual Studio over the past year:
- What’s New for C++ Developers in Visual Studio 2026 (18.1-18.6)
- What’s New for C++ Developers in Visual Studio 2026 (18.7-18.10)
Together, these posts cover the Visual Studio improvements that are relevant to C++ developers, spanning topics including GitHub Copilot, debugging, productivity, Git tooling, and MSVC improvements. These posts also include improvements that were not covered in the talk. In addition, the resources below provide deeper detail on several topics.
AI-assisted C++ workflows
Visual Studio is combining C++-specific code understanding with GitHub Copilot to support workflows that span code navigation, modernization, refactoring, debugging, and performance optimization. Check out the following resources for more information:
- What is GitHub Copilot modernization? describes an agentic workflow for upgrading your projects to a newer MSVC version.
- Rethinking C++ Performance: Faster Code Navigation and GitHub Copilot Tools with Whole Codebase Indexing explains how whole codebase indexing improves navigation and gives Copilot faster access to semantic C++ context.
- Get started with GitHub Copilot build performance for Windows introduces the agentic workflow for identifying, applying, and validating C++ build-time improvements.
- Project-Specific Build Optimizations with GitHub Copilot shows how to focus build performance analysis on an individual MSBuild project or CMake target.
- Faster C++ iterative builds with GitHub Copilot introduces an improvement to the Build Performance workflow that can make optimizations for iterative builds.
- The Visual Studio Debugger Agentic Workflow Gets a Test-Driven Upgrade introduces Test-Driven Investigation, which creates or identifies a focused test, debugs through it to find the root cause, and reruns it to validate the fix.
The What’s New for C++ Developers blog posts above also include the latest resources for agentic debugging, profiler integration, customizable agents and skills, and other AI-assisted development features in Visual Studio.
MSVC, language conformance, and runtime performance
The latest Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools releases include continued C++23 conformance work, compiler optimization improvements, new architecture support, and new ways to improve application performance. Read more in these posts:
- MSVC Build Tools version 14.51 Available
- C++ Performance Improvements in MSVC Build Tools v14.51
- Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools v14.51 Preview Released: How to Opt In
- C++23 Constexpr Cmath and LLVM Libc
- Introducing Sample Profile Guided Optimization in MSVC
- Boosting Adobe Photoshop’s Performance with MSVC and SPGO
- Segment Heap Support for C++ Projects in Visual Studio
- Also see the full list of MSVC blog posts, including monthly preview updates
We are also announcing that MSVC Build Tools v14.52, shipping this November, will include the /std:c++23 switch and will be C++23 complete. The only limitation to this is the constexpr cmath implementation, which is experimental and off by default (opt in with the /Zc:cmath switch). The switch is available in the latest preview compiler in the Visual Studio 2026 Insiders Channel now, but the IDE integration will be coming soon.
To try out the latest MSVC Build Tools v14.52 Preview, in the Visual Studio Installer, select MSVC Build Tools for x64/x86 (Preview), MSVC Build Tools for ARM64/ARM64EC (Preview), or both, depending on the architectures you target. See how to opt in to MSVC Build Tools previews for configuration guidance.
Copilot CLI
Offload some of your work to an agent in the terminal with Copilot CLI, built on the same modern Copilot SDK shared with Visual Studio, VS Code, and the GitHub Copilot app. You can augment Copilot CLI with semantic intelligence like the IDE by installing the C++ language server plugin, which supports richer code navigation, diagnostics, symbol understanding, and code changes. If you ever felt frustrated by AI tools relying on grep-style searches that burn too many tokens or take too long to get to the right answer, this is for you. And in general, you should give Copilot CLI a shot if you like doing some of your work in terminal windows, rather than all in the IDE.
More from Microsoft at CppCon 2026
For a broader guide to Microsoft’s sessions and activities at the conference, see Microsoft at CppCon 2026.
Try Visual Studio 2026 and share your feedback
Download Visual Studio 2026 from the channel that best fits your workflow. The Stable Channel updates monthly. The Insiders Channel updates weekly, is one month ahead of the Stable Channel, and provides earlier access to features still in preview.
We want to hear about your experience. Share feedback through Help > Send Feedback in Visual Studio, visit Developer Community, or leave a comment below.
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