{"id":253946,"date":"2025-08-20T08:40:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/?p=253946"},"modified":"2025-08-20T08:40:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:40:20","slug":"bring-your-own-model-visual-studio-chat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/bring-your-own-model-visual-studio-chat\/","title":{"rendered":"Bring Your Own Model to Chat in Visual Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"53\" data-end=\"158\"><strong data-start=\"53\" data-end=\"156\">We\u2019re excited to announce that you can now bring your own language model into Visual Studio Chat.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"250\" data-end=\"513\">You can connect API keys from providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) to access a wider range of models. This makes it easy to test the latest releases, customize workflows, or run on infrastructure you control.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"250\" data-end=\"513\"><div  class=\"d-flex justify-content-left\"><a class=\"cta_button_link btn-primary mb-24\" href=\"https:\/\/visualstudio.microsoft.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Try it out in Visual Studio<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n<h3 data-start=\"250\" data-end=\"513\">What it unlocks<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li data-start=\"577\" data-end=\"677\"><strong data-start=\"577\" data-end=\"587\">Choice<\/strong> \u2013 Access more than just the built-in defaults, and try new models the moment they drop.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"680\" data-end=\"773\"><strong data-start=\"680\" data-end=\"697\">Customization<\/strong> \u2013 Pick models that align with your security, infra, or performance needs.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"776\" data-end=\"854\"><strong data-start=\"776\" data-end=\"787\">Control<\/strong> \u2013 Manage usage, quotas, and billing directly with your provider.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"857\" data-end=\"942\"><strong data-start=\"857\" data-end=\"872\">Flexibility<\/strong> \u2013 Switch seamlessly between Copilot\u2019s built-in models and your own.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><iframe title=\"Bring Your Own Key To Chat\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nBXM02NNTLo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 data-start=\"949\" data-end=\"969\">Getting started<\/h3>\n<p data-start=\"971\" data-end=\"1065\">If you already have an API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google, setup takes just a minute:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li data-start=\"1070\" data-end=\"1114\">Open the <strong data-start=\"1079\" data-end=\"1094\">Chat Window<\/strong> in Visual Studio.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1118\" data-end=\"1167\">Select <strong data-start=\"1125\" data-end=\"1142\">Manage Models<\/strong> from the model picker.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1171\" data-end=\"1217\">Choose your provider and paste your API key.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1221\" data-end=\"1278\">Pick from the preset list, or enter a model name.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1282\" data-end=\"1336\">That\u2019s it\u2014your model will now show up in the picker.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><div class=\"alert alert-primary\">This feature is not currently available for Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise users. <\/div><\/p>\n<h4>A few important considerations:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li data-start=\"1378\" data-end=\"1502\">This feature currently applies <strong data-start=\"1409\" data-end=\"1425\">only to Chat<\/strong> in Visual Studio (not completions, commit messages, or other AI features).<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1505\" data-end=\"1601\">Model capabilities vary\u2014some may not support advanced features like tool use or vision inputs.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1604\" data-end=\"1706\">Certain services (embeddings, repo indexing, intent detection) will still run through Copilot\u2019s API.<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1709\" data-end=\"1837\">Output from third-party models comes directly from the provider and may not pass through Copilot\u2019s responsible AI filters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><div  class=\"d-flex justify-content-left\"><a class=\"cta_button_link btn-primary mb-24\" href=\"https:\/\/visualstudio.microsoft.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Try it out in Visual Studio<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"481\" data-end=\"664\">This is just the beginning. We\u2019re expanding support for additional model providers soon, and we look forward to seeing how you use this feature and which models you choose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re excited to announce that you can now bring your own language model into Visual Studio Chat. You can connect API keys from providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) to access a wider range of models. This makes it easy to test the latest releases, customize workflows, or run on infrastructure you control. What it unlocks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142353,"featured_media":253950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6888],"tags":[6981,1055,7004,7006,6883,7007,7008,7010,7005,6975,7009,12],"class_list":["post-253946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-copilot","tag-anthropic","tag-ai","tag-byok","tag-claude","tag-copilot","tag-gemini","tag-google","tag-gpt","tag-key","tag-models","tag-openai","tag-visual-studio"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>We\u2019re excited to announce that you can now bring your own language model into Visual Studio Chat. You can connect API keys from providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) to access a wider range of models. This makes it easy to test the latest releases, customize workflows, or run on infrastructure you control. What it unlocks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}