Clarify model selection availability for Copilot Free and Student plans

[ashis-baral]

Code of Conduct

• I have read and agree to the GitHub Docs project's Code of Conduct

What article on docs.github.com is affected?

https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-ai-models/change-the-chat-model

What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?

The article explains how to switch between models in GitHub Copilot Chat, but it does not clearly state that users on the Copilot Free and Copilot Student plans cannot manually change the model.

A note should be added:

Note

Copilot Free and Copilot Student users cannot manually select a model. These plans use Auto model selection only. Manual model selection is available on eligible paid Copilot plans, subject to organization or enterprise policies.

The expected outcome is that users on Copilot Free and Copilot Student understand that they cannot manually select a model.

Additional information

Adding a clear statement about this limitation would prevent users from looking for a model selector that is not available on their plan.

[subatoi]

Thanks @ashis-baral—we'll mark this for triage and review it as soon as possible

[ashis-baral]

@subatoi Just to clarify, this issue is specifically about the GitHub website. Copilot Free users can see the model selector, but the models are locked, so they cannot manually change the model unless they upgrade to an eligible plan. Unlike VS Code, there is currently no BYOK option on GitHub.com

[subatoi]

Thank you, but that doesn't change the suggestion I've made here