Microsoft has announced the retirement of its IntelliCode extensions for Visual Studio Code, signaling a clear transition away from its earlier AI-assisted completion tooling. Going forward, the company is directing C# developers toward GitHub Copilot Chat as the preferred solution for AI-powered coding assistance, including contextual suggestions and inline completions.

The change was disclosed in a notice published on GitHub, where Microsoft confirmed that several IntelliCode-related extensions are no longer supported. These include the original IntelliCode extension, IntelliCode Completions, IntelliCode for the C# Dev Kit, and IntelliCode API Usage Examples. Developers are encouraged to remove the IntelliCode for C# Dev Kit extension and rely instead on the default C# tooling provided by Visual Studio Code or adopt Copilot Chat for enhanced AI-driven features.

Core language intelligence within VS Code will remain unaffected by the move. Microsoft emphasized that standard developer conveniences—such as code completion lists, parameter hints, hover documentation, and syntax highlighting—will continue to be delivered by the Roslyn-powered language server that underpins C# support in the editor. What is being removed is only the additional AI layer that IntelliCode previously provided.

Support for the deprecated extensions has ended immediately. No further updates, bug fixes, or feature enhancements will be issued, and the extensions will be labeled as deprecated in the marketplace. As a result, developers will no longer see prioritized or “starred” suggestions within IntelliSense menus. Inline ghost-text recommendations, which appeared as faint gray text while typing, are also being eliminated.

By consolidating AI-assisted development around GitHub Copilot Chat, Microsoft appears to be streamlining its tooling ecosystem and focusing future innovation on a single, more advanced AI platform rather than maintaining parallel solutions.