Copilot reaches JetBrains Air, with cloud billing and governance limits
GitHub announced on November 3, 2026 that Copilot is available in JetBrains Air through the Agent Client Protocol. Developers can delegate coding tasks, guide execution and review results in their JetBrains IDE or in the cloud. The integration is a new way to use an existing Copilot subscription, not an announcement of unlimited free compute.
For local work, GitHub says to install Air in the JetBrains IDE, choose Copilot and connect the Copilot account. Air can track multiple sessions, use project context and IDE tools, and show proposed changes alongside code. Local and cloud tasks have different setup requirements.
Cloud tasks require a JetBrains account in an Air Teams-enabled business organization, a Copilot subscription and administrator permission to use Copilot. In a browser, users connect GitHub under Settings and VCS Providers, then choose a repository, remote branch and Copilot when creating a task. The IDE plugin also offers a Cloud environment selector.
GitHub says cloud tasks run in Docker containers on fresh virtual machines. Traffic passes through a proxy, and state does not carry over between tasks. Copilot can build, test and install packages without modifying the local development environment. That description does not by itself guarantee that every possible dependency or network destination is allowed.
These tasks use the Copilot plan rather than JetBrains AI credits. Connecting the account does not request Copilot permissions, and Air may check subscription or credit availability only when the cloud environment starts. If the subscription or credits are unavailable, the task fails with an error. Users cannot choose a personal or organization plan for an individual task.
Air administrators can disable Copilot through governance policy, but cannot set Copilot spending limits inside Air. Air governance and analytics also do not include Copilot usage. Teams therefore should not assume that Air alone provides a complete Copilot usage or spending view before enabling cloud tasks.