The August 2025 update for Visual Studio 2022 (v17.14) is now available, and it’s all about helping developers stay focused, productive, and in control. Whether you’re building games, tuning performance, or exploring AI, this release brings meaningful improvements that make everyday development smoother and smarter.

GPT-5 support now available

We’re excited to announce that GPT-5 is now available in Visual Studio, bringing the latest advancements in AI directly to your development environment. With GPT-5 integration, you can leverage more powerful, accurate, and context-aware code suggestions and chat experiences. Whether you’re writing complex algorithms, refactoring large codebases, or brainstorming new features, GPT-5 helps you move faster and with greater confidence.

Connect your entire stack with MCP

We’re excited to announce that MCP (Model Context Protocol) support is now generally available in Visual Studio. MCP is a powerful protocol that connects AI agents to external tools – like databases, code search, and deployment systems – without needing custom integrations for each one. Think of it as the HTTP of tool connectivity.

With this release, Visual Studio makes it easier than ever to manage and connect to MCP servers:

• OAuth support for any provider: Authenticate with any OAuth provider directly from Visual Studio using the new authorization spec.
• One-click server install from the web: Add MCP servers with a single click from supported repositories – no more manual JSON editing.
• New server add flow: Use the green plus button in the Copilot Chat tool picker to quickly configure and connect to new servers.
• Governance controls: Organizations can now manage MCP access via GitHub policy settings for better compliance and control.

This update makes MCP a first-class experience in Visual Studio, helping teams unlock richer, real-time context across their entire engineering stack.

Smarter Copilot Chat with better context

Copilot Chat can now more reliably surface relevant code snippets. It now uses improved semantic code search to better identify when a query should trigger a code lookup. When that context is detected, it searches across your solution or workspace to retrieve the most relevant snippets, even from natural language descriptions, reducing the need to manually navigate your codebase.

Sign Up for Copilot with Google

Getting started with Copilot is now easier than ever. You can sign up using your Google account directly from Visual Studio. It’s a fast, frictionless way to get up and running with AI-powered coding-no extra setup required.

Bring your own AI model to Chat

Want more control over your AI experience? You can now connect your own language models to Visual Studio Chat using API keys from OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic. This gives you the flexibility to choose the model that best fits your workflow, whether you’re optimizing for performance, privacy, or experimentation.

Unified debugging for Unreal Engine

If you’re working in C++ with Unreal Engine, debugging just got a major upgrade. Visual Studio now lets you debug Blueprint and native code together in a single session. You’ll see Blueprint data in the call stack and locals window, and you can even set breakpoints directly in Blueprint code.

This makes it easier to trace interactions and fix issues across both scripting layers.

Copilot Suggestions when you want them

Prefer a quieter editor? You can now disable automatic Copilot suggestions and trigger them manually with keyboard shortcuts. This gives you full control over when suggestions appear, helping you stay focused when you need to and get help when you want it.

Cleaner editing with collapsed suggestions

Next Edit Suggestions (NES) are now hidden by default. Instead of popping up automatically, they appear as a subtle margin indicator when relevant. You decide when to engage, keeping your editor clean and distraction-free.

Accept code completions partially

Have you ever wanted to only accept the first couple words or lines of a Copilot code completions instead of accepting the whole thing? We are excited to announce that you will now be able to partially accept a completion word by word or line by line!

Git context in Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat now understands your Git history. You can reference commits and uncommitted changes directly in chat to summarize work, explain updates, or generate tests-all without leaving the editor.

This makes it easier to stay in flow while reviewing or refining your code.

Built with your feedback

Many of the features and fixes in this release come directly from the Developer Community. Your suggestions and bug reports continue to shape Visual Studio, and we’re grateful for your input. You can explore all the community-driven updates and fixes in the release notes.

Thanks again for your feedback and support. We’re excited to keep building Visual Studio with you-one update at a time. Let us know what you think, and as always, happy coding!