GitHub Copilot Chat: new features for understanding pull requests and automated code reviews

GitHub announced a set of Copilot Chat improvements on April 23, 2026, focused exclusively on the pull request experience. Three new features shorten the time needed to understand and review changes, without requiring the developer to leave the GitHub interface.

What could Copilot Chat do before?

Copilot Chat was originally oriented toward repository search and answering questions about code. A developer could ask “where is this function called” or “how is this module implemented” and receive an answer based on the repository’s content.

Pull request integration was limited — Copilot could offer suggestions for individual lines, but it did not have a holistic view of the entire PR. For deeper analysis of the diff between branches, a summary of the intent of the change, or a structured review proposal, the developer had to combine multiple tools.

What do the three new features bring?

The first feature is understanding a PR through comments and reviews. Copilot Chat now processes not only the diff but also the comment history, the discussion between reviewers, and the author’s responses. This allows it to answer the question “why is this PR in this state” with much more context.

The second feature is structured pull request reviews. Instead of one narrative response, Copilot now generates a review organized by categories — potential bugs, style deviations, suggestions for better naming, security risks. This makes it easier to triage the results. The third feature is concise change summaries that describe in a few sentences what the PR does at the business level.

Who benefits most?

Junior developers doing code review for the first time get a structured framework — Copilot’s review becomes the starting point, and they add their own judgment. Senior developers who need to quickly go through 20+ pull requests get a summary that saves time before diving into the details.

The features are available at github.com/copilot and directly in the diff view by clicking the Copilot button. This is part of a broader strategy of integrating AI agents into GitHub interfaces — agent sessions in issues and project views were previously announced. The next steps likely lead toward automatic review signing and deeper integration with CODEOWNERS files.