Mads Kristensen shares the highlights of the August 2025 Visual Studio 2022 update, including GPT-5 support, smarter and more flexible Copilot features, MCP tool integration, and debugging enhancements for C++ and Unreal Engine.

Visual Studio 2022 August 2025 Update: Key Features and Enhancements

Author: Mads Kristensen

The August 2025 update for Visual Studio 2022 (v17.14) delivers a suite of improvements that streamline development workflows and leverage the latest in AI-powered assistance.

AI and Copilot Enhancements

GPT-5 Integration

You can now access GPT-5 inside Visual Studio, delivering advanced, context-aware code suggestions and chat capabilities. This change provides:

  • More accurate and relevant code completions
  • Smarter codebase navigation
  • Improved support for complex coding and refactoring tasks

See the official announcement

Smarter Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat surfaces the most relevant code snippets using improved semantic code search, enabling:

  • Natural language queries that surface matching code across your solution
  • Better context retrieval for more useful chats and suggestions

Sign Up for Copilot with Google

Developers can now sign up for Copilot directly with their Google account, making it easier to start using AI-powered development tools.

Copilot Suggestions Control

  • Option to disable automatic Copilot suggestions
  • New keyboard shortcuts to trigger suggestions only when needed
  • Cleaner editing experience with suggestions displayed as indicators instead of pop-ups
  • “Partial accept” feature for Copilot code completions, letting you accept suggestions word by word or line by line

Git Context in Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat now understands and incorporates your Git history, summarizing commits and uncommitted changes without leaving the editor.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) Integration

Visual Studio now natively supports MCP, a protocol for connecting AI agents to tools such as databases, code search, and deployment systems. Key highlights:

  • OAuth authentication for any provider
  • One-click MCP server installation from supported repositories
  • Improved server addition workflow via the Copilot Chat tool picker
  • Governance controls using GitHub policy settings for better compliance in organizations

Learm more about MCP support

Bring Your Own AI Model

Developers can connect their own AI model to Visual Studio Chat via API keys from OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic, allowing flexibility for models that best fit their workflow, including privacy and performance considerations.

Debugging and Productivity Improvements

  • Unified Debugging for Unreal Engine: Debug C++ and Blueprint code simultaneously, inspect Blueprint data in call stacks and locals, and set breakpoints in Blueprint.
  • Cleaner Editing: Next Edit Suggestions (NES) are now hidden by default for a less distracting editing experience.
  • Developer Community Feedback: Many fixes and features come directly from user feedback. View the full release notes.

Summary

Visual Studio 2022 v17.14 emphasizes developer productivity, intelligent AI integration, advanced tool connectivity, and a smoother coding and debugging workflow. Whether you rely on Copilot, experiment with your own AI models, or want more powerful tool integrations, this update has something for you.

This post appeared first on “Microsoft VisualStudio Blog”. Read the entire article here