Today, we launch GitLab 18.0, which highlights our latest innovations and plans in core DevSecOps workflows, security and compliance, and AI. As part of this release, we're excited to announce that GitLab Premium and Ultimate now include essential GitLab Duo AI capabilities at no additional cost. All Premium and Ultimate customers will have immediate access to GitLab Duo Code Suggestions and Chat directly in their preferred supported source code editors and IDEs.
AI for every development team
Artificial intelligence is now at the center of the developer experience. AI enhances coding in many ways: It analyzes your codebase and provides real-time suggestions as you type, creates functions and methods based on your project's context, reduces repetitive tasks, and automates code reviews.
Over the past few years, we've built GitLab Duo to infuse generative and agentic AI capabilities like these into our platform. Because writing code is just the start of the software lifecycle – our global DevSecOps study found that developers spend 79% of their time on tasks other than code creation – we have adopted a strategy to integrate AI throughout the entire software development lifecycle.
Now, we’re excited to take the next step forward by including essential GitLab Duo capabilities in our GitLab Premium and Ultimate tiers, enabling developers to get the benefits of AI at no additional cost.
By including GitLab Duo Chat and Duo Code Suggestions in Premium and Ultimate, every software engineer can accelerate their workflow within the IDE — without requiring separate tooling, licensing, or governance. All existing Premium and Ultimate customers now have instant access to Duo Chat and Code Suggestions, once they upgrade to GitLab 18.0, and this enhancement becomes standard for all new customers.
"GitLab has already been instrumental in eliminating our reliance on a fragmented toolchain, which cut costs from disconnected solutions, and streamlined our workflow. Enhancing GitLab Premium with Duo will give us even greater efficiency and cost savings as our developers spend less time on routine coding tasks and more time tackling complex challenges that drive real business value.”
- Andrei Nita, Chief Technology Officer at McKenzie Intelligence Services
Premium and Ultimate customers now have these AI-native capabilities:
GitLab Duo Code Suggestions
- Generate complete functions and code blocks from comments
- Get intelligent code completions as you type
- Support for 20+ programming languages
- Available in most popular IDEs
Take this interactive tour to learn about GitLab Duo Code Suggestions (click on the image to start the tour).
Learn more in our Duo Code Suggestions documentation.
GitLab Duo Chat
- Explain unfamiliar code to understand complex functionality
- Refactor existing code to improve quality and maintainability
- Generate comprehensive test cases to help catch bugs earlier
- Fix code issues directly in your workflow
Learn more in our Duo Chat documentation.
"For us, as GitLab users, Duo's intelligent code suggestions have become a daily asset for our developers. Combined with the chat feature, it allows for immediate feedback and iteration, resulting in faster development cycles and a more secure codebase. It's a seamless and powerful addition to our workflows."
- Felix Kortmann, Chief Technology Officer, Ignite by FORVIA HELLA
Duo Enterprise now available to GitLab Premium customers
Due to strong customer demand, we're also excited to share that GitLab Premium customers now can purchase Duo Enterprise, our full suite of AI offerings, without needing to upgrade to GitLab Ultimate. Premium customers can enjoy a rich AI experience seamlessly integrated across the software development lifecycle. This includes exciting GitLab Duo capabilities like:
- Root Cause Analysis helps resolve CI/CD pipeline failures quickly, ensuring your CI/CD pipelines remain green.
- Code Review enables faster merge request reviews by leveraging Duo as a code reviewer.
- Advanced Chat summarizes conversations, helps understand code changes, and provides advanced configuration assistance.
- Self-Hosted enables Duo to be leveraged within air-gapped and offline environments by hosting approved AI models for Duo to use.
In addition to Duo Enterprise availability, we continue to invest in the success of GitLab Premium customers. Since the launch of GitLab 17, we’ve shipped more than a hundred features and improvements, including:
- CI/CD Catalog enables developers to share, discover, and reuse
pre-existing CI/CD components and configurations. - Artifact registry gives developers secure access to artifacts and seamless integration with CI/CD pipelines.
- Remote development enables developers to work in on-demand,
cloud-based development environments.
GitLab Duo: AI that meets organizations where they are
GitLab customers have a comprehensive menu of Duo offerings, across our Pro and Enterprise solutions, to meet you where you are in the AI adoption cycle – the further along your teams are, the more capabilities you can use to build, test, and deploy secure software faster.
How current GitLab Ultimate and Premium customers can get started with Duo
Starting with GitLab 18.0, for existing Ultimate and Premium customers, Duo Code Suggestions and Chat features will be off by default but can easily be enabled – learn how below.
To start experiencing GitLab Premium and Ultimate with Duo:
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Ensure you're on GitLab Premium or Ultimate. If not, you can start a free, 60-day trial.
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Enable GitLab Duo in your organization settings.
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If using a local IDE, install the appropriate GitLab Editor Extension.
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Start using Code Suggestions and Chat in your preferred supported local IDE or the GitLab Web IDE.
Note: For new customers and trials, GitLab's AI capabilities will be enabled automatically.
AI-native development requires a DevSecOps platform
AI is fundamentally reshaping the developer experience. Organizations won't just have more people building software. They'll have more production-ready code generated by AI – making GitLab more essential than ever.
We built GitLab Premium and Ultimate with Duo specifically for this new reality, giving teams one secure foundation for all their code. As AI generates code across your organization, GitLab becomes your control center: no separate tools for security scanning, compliance checks, or managing pipelines. Just a single, unified platform that scales with your organization and helps ensure all code meets your standards before reaching production. As AI accelerates your development, GitLab enables you to maintain control, security, and quality from end to end.
To learn more about GitLab Duo and all the ways it can transform how your team works, visit our GitLab Premium page or if you are a GitLab customer, reach out to your GitLab representative to schedule a demo. Finally, we invite you to join us on June 24, 2025, for our GitLab 18 virtual launch event to learn about the future of AI-native software development.
