"Microsoft has released a preview of Visual Studio 2026, the first major version update since 2021, promising deeper AI integration and a new look and feel. Visual Studio is the second most popular IDE after VS Code, so the first major update in five years sounds like a big deal for developers. Visual Studio 2022, also known as version 17.x, was first released in November 2021. The new version will be 18.x."
"Changes highlighted by Kristensen include a new logo, the renaming of Visual Studio Preview to Visual Studio Insiders, refreshed UI using Microsoft's Fluent Design system, improved theming with new themes including Mango Paradise and Juicy Plum, and of course deeper AI integration. These are not things that developers care much about, AI aside; but there is more information in a recent presentation on the future of Visual Studio, and in the release notes."
"VS 2026 has more hooks to enable Copilot to get context and intervene, enabling features such as the profiler copilot agent which will benchmark code, look for potential optimizations, and implement them on your behalf. Another example is adaptive paste, where Copilot will automatically adjust pasted code to fit the context of existing code. URL context in Copilot lets developers reference a URL in the chat, such as asking the AI to follow guidelines in a web document."
Visual Studio 2026 preview delivers incremental updates rather than a radical overhaul, with a refreshed UI based on Microsoft's Fluent Design system, a new logo, renamed preview channel, and new themes like Mango Paradise and Juicy Plum. The release centers on deeper AI integration through expanded Copilot hooks, including a profiler Copilot agent that benchmarks and optimizes code, adaptive paste that adjusts pasted code to context, and URL context allowing Copilot to follow external guidelines. Users can select their preferred LLM provider via a dropdown and supply their own API key for Anthropic, Google, or OpenAI. Settings are now stored in an editable JSON file with richer filtering.
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