Visual Studio 2026 is generally available as of April 14, pitched as Microsoft's first AI-native IDE. The release bakes intelligent agents into the platform layer, adds Copilot Workspace integration, improves Azure DevOps tooling, and ships a redesigned UI optimized for responsiveness. Full compatibility with .NET 10 and existing extensions is included. The launch reframes Visual Studio's position against VS Code, Cursor, and JetBrains for enterprise .NET shops. Teams on VS 2022 can upgrade in place; the 2026 installer detects and migrates existing workloads. Extension compatibility is claimed to be universal, but teams with heavy marketplace dependence should pilot before a broad rollout.