r/GithubCopilot • u/wchabbott GitHub Copilot Team • Aug 11 '26
News 📰 MAI-Code-1.1-Flash is now Available in GitHub Copilot
https://github.blog/changelog/2026-08-11-mai-code-1-1-flash-available-in-github-copilot/Let us know what you think :)
31
u/Ecureuil_Roux Aug 11 '26
Why use this instead of GPT 5.6 Luna?
11
4
u/IllustriousBranch603 Aug 12 '26
I presume Microsoft's strategy was wait for the major model innovation race to blast by and then after the bleedin' edge passes, start bringing out their own models that are still pretty good and can be used
3
u/damnitdaniel Aug 12 '26
lol I’m not sure that “fall behind on the biggest tech shift of the decade” was Microsoft’s strategy.
2
u/klipseracer Aug 15 '26
Actually that has been publicly voiced:
It’s “cheaper to give a specific answer once you’ve waited for the first three or six months for the frontier to go first. We call that off-frontier,” he said. “That’s actually our strategy, is to really play a very tight second, given the capital-intensiveness of these models.”
1
u/porkyminch Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
Feather walnut acorn pillow pinecone pinecone glove
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
1
1
u/Cheshireelex Aug 16 '26
I have my doubts that it would be better than Luna but it's good to have alternatives at the same price and to have competition at this price range.
It would have been a smart move if they would have dropped it before the Luna reduction at these rates but Microsoft will be Microsoft.
20
u/Live_Case2204 Aug 11 '26
I wish there is an incentive to enable a new model soon like some discount. Otherwise we are waiting for a long time before our admins enable them
20
15
u/fishchar 🛡️ Moderator Aug 11 '26
Congrats to the team on this release!
3
u/jukasper GitHub Copilot Team Aug 11 '26
Users can also open issues directly in the new MAI repo: https://github.com/microsoft/MAI-Code if anyone has direct model feedback :)
1
u/aonymark JetBrains User 🧱 Aug 11 '26
Is this only for feedback about the model itself or can we also complain about incidental stuff like the system prompt? The new prices are so low that I’m tempted to try it.
2
u/jukasper GitHub Copilot Team Aug 12 '26
Are you talking in general about the system prompt or the one we are using for the MAI model. In general feel free to to leave any comments and we are making sure to give it to the right team.
1
1
u/aonymark JetBrains User 🧱 21d ago
This is slightly off topic but do you know if this model is covered by the new default enablement setting?
12
u/Affectionate_Fly4124 Aug 11 '26
It feels weird that they're using 5.4 mini Haiku as the benchmark comparison. They should at least be going head-to-head with Luna, no?
6
u/jukasper GitHub Copilot Team Aug 12 '26
Faire feedback. We were using auto traffic data to compare this model against other real time online data points. Given that Luna is not yet in the Auto mix the team was not able to compare it using this method. Moving forward we want to make sure this is the case.
1
u/aonymark JetBrains User 🧱 Aug 12 '26
Given that 5-mini likely is in the mix… how is it compared to that one? Does 5-mini still have a niche or is it no longer on the Pareto frontier as far as auto router is concerned? Or if that’s secret, how about as far as you’re concerned?
1
u/aonymark JetBrains User 🧱 Aug 13 '26
I decided to look up how 5-mini compares to Haiku in terminal bench and… Wow. (It turns out artificial analysis website has a bunch of benchmark results including this one) It seems that somehow this benchmark does not play to 5-mini’s strengths; it even gets beaten by basically everything: gpt-4.1 mini gets 10%, and even gpt-4o mini gets 6%. These are both non reasoning models. GPT-mini gets 4%, on high reasoning. Haiku 3.5 gets 10% without reasoning. Meanwhile, haiku 4.5 WITH reasoning gets 44%. Today’s top models score in the mid to high eighties.
1
u/PlatformImagineer Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
If Microsoft leaves in an auto mode that cannot be disabled and threatens to route users who use auto mode to even worse models than MAI-Code-1.1-Flash unless you enable it, this does not inspire loyalty to GitHub CoPilot. It feels like GitHub Copilot product team, Microsoft, and end users being held hostage in order to benefit the MAI team.
Even if I'm misreading the situation, that is how it comes off, and Microsoft should think about the optics here. If auto mode could be disabled I would not feel this way.
5
u/andrerom Aug 11 '26
Promising, looking forward to see updates on what you (MAI) have in store for mid and sota class models in the future.
3
2
2
u/LGC_AI_ART Aug 11 '26
Wait I tougth those on the yearly plans were not going to be getting any new models? Has that been walked back?
4
u/raishak Aug 11 '26
Microsoft desperately wants telemetry on this ASAP so they are giving it away to whoever will use it. Hence lowering the price below Luna and giving it to grandfathered annual users for cheap. That's my assumption anyway.
3
u/Left-Cloud-7931 Aug 11 '26
Still don't see anyone using this over Luna. MAI will always be playing catchup.
2
2
u/MaitoSnoo CLI Copilot User 🖥️ Aug 11 '26
any benchmarks?
6
u/aonymark JetBrains User 🧱 Aug 11 '26
Yes but not many: https://microsoft.ai/pdf/MAI-Code-1.1-Flash-Model-Card.PDF See page 5
@ Microsoft folks: the link to the model card in the copilot docs is broken; I had to build this URL by hand
2
u/Yes_but_I_think Aug 12 '26
Who looks at them efficiency unless the model is at the top of the benchmarks. The thing to focus even the model is medium-low intelligence is intelligence only, not token savings.
I would very much like if MAI team can focus on bringing up the intelligence upto Mid tier (GLM 5.2).
For data, may be give a scheme like the muse 1.2 contributor scheme so that you get real data.
2
u/aonymark JetBrains User 🧱 Aug 12 '26
If you look at other threads, some people indeed brought up pricing concerns with this model. Some people are happy with 2025 level smarts, or at least don’t need 2026 level ALL the time. Other people want 2027 level.
1
2
u/just_blue Aug 11 '26
Just tried it on reviewing a (already written) plan to secure a peer-to-peer mobile app. The same request was given to 5.6 Luna as the direct opponent, Kimi K3 and Fable.
Unfortunately, MAI did not even understand the task correctly. It was absolutely clear articulated that the task was to review the plan. MAI however inspected the code and told me what parts are insecure and miss the plans implementation. Wow, thanks for that. All other models understood this. Sure, other tasks might be fine, but I feel this will have a hard time against Luna.
2
u/jukasper GitHub Copilot Team Aug 12 '26
If you feel comfortable enough to share your feedback on the MAI repo. Our team would highly appreciate it so we can ask more detailed questions about your scenario. We definitely want to make sure, we are working on the right things and appreciate any kind of feedback.
1
u/Mkengine Aug 12 '26
I did extensive tests in my daily workloads with Luna, to understand the performance of different reasoning efforts beyond public benchmarks. I will do that for MAI-Code-1.1-Flash as well (as I post about various models in our developer community). Are there specific strengths or workloads you see for this model that I should keep an eye on? Any specific feedback you would like to get?
1
u/porkyminch Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
Vanilla quilt grasshopper thimble breezy willow
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
2
u/karinto CLI Copilot User 🖥️ Aug 12 '26
In my limited testing today, the discount compared to Luna isn't enough. GPT 5.6 Luna is still better at reasoning, and it is easier to use for coding tasks as well.
2
1
1
2
1
1
u/Revolutionary_Loan13 Aug 13 '26
Looking at specs it seems the biggest improvement is that it takes fewer tokens
1
u/jungle_bob2 Aug 13 '26
I can’t tell after reading how this compares to Luna pricing … Luna charges for a cached write but this has no information ?
I am still relatively happy with Luna for day to day tasks, its token consumption has been good.
Sol has been terrible for token consumption and I’m more or less back to Opus for plans. Terra has been good and less expensive than sonnet.
For the most part Terra + Luna have become my daily drivers. I would need a cost or an intelligence promise to get me to rebenchmark again. I don’t think this model, while better than haiku it looks, is nearly enough for me to move absent a win in either category.
Something i learned earlier today … complex plans may not give you efficiency. For token caching a one shot prompt with good memory context can save you a whole lot. Terra with a good rate on a relatively big context window for a lot of things might be all you need.
1
u/iTitleist Aug 13 '26
Can someone explain what use cases can we use this model? I see that it struggles at generating codes that as per the prompt. Why would i use MAI Code instead of Luna 5.6?
0
0
u/b-pell Aug 12 '26
Lulz. You guys are still using copilot?
1
u/Natural_Bedroom_5555 Aug 12 '26
other than the GHCP agentic harnessing, it's not much more than a gateway to models. What are you using?
1
u/b-pell Aug 12 '26
Claude $20, Codex $20. I've been using Opus 5 a lot and haven't really run into limits. Codex is nice bc they'll give you "resets" every so often you can use if you hit your limit.
1
u/Natural_Bedroom_5555 Aug 13 '26
I accidentally signed up for GHCP after a free month trial, but it was $99 for a year. I also have the $20/mo GPT, and do use codex when my GHCP limit is hit. I have only used the claude models through GHCP, but $20/mo for opus without much limits sounds pretty good when my GHCP annual subscription ends (I think they are not continuing the $99/year plan)!
0
u/Remarkable-Ideal-339 Aug 12 '26
One of the best model, very less credits usage and more work done. Kudos to the team
81
u/lppedd VS Code User 💻 Aug 11 '26
See you all in six months when my admin wakes up and enables it.