---
title: "A New Agentic Experience: JetBrains Air in IDEs – EAP Now Open"
description: "JetBrains launched the Early Access Program for Air, an agentic experience in its IDEs available as a plugin or in 2026.3 EAP builds. Air orchestrates multiple AI agents in parallel, moving beyond the traditional AI chat model that JetBrains found insufficient for concurrent tasks. It acts as a conduit for existing agents like Codex, GitHub Copilot, Junie, and Claude, requiring no JetBrains AI subscription. The agentic-first UX organizes work into sessions with cost visibility, temporary worktrees, and local or cloud runs, with free Junie Lite for everyday tasks. Air ships with no agents installed, detects agents on the machine, and sends data directly to the user’s provider, while AI Assistant remains available as a separate plugin."
---

# A New Agentic Experience: JetBrains Air in IDEs – EAP Now Open

[Jetbrains](https://yomu.fyi/company/jetbrains) · Dominique Rolink · Oct 1, 2026

**Type:** Announcement

## Summary

JetBrains launched the Early Access Program for Air, an agentic experience in its IDEs available as a plugin or in 2026.3 EAP builds. Air orchestrates multiple AI agents in parallel, moving beyond the traditional AI chat model that JetBrains found insufficient for concurrent tasks. It acts as a conduit for existing agents like Codex, GitHub Copilot, Junie, and Claude, requiring no JetBrains AI subscription. The agentic-first UX organizes work into sessions with cost visibility, temporary worktrees, and local or cloud runs, with free Junie Lite for everyday tasks. Air ships with no agents installed, detects agents on the machine, and sends data directly to the user’s provider, while AI Assistant remains available as a separate plugin.

## Context

JetBrains observed that orchestrating multiple agents in parallel is fundamentally different from conversational AI chat. Their existing AI Assistant was not designed for this workflow, leading to the creation of Air as a dedicated agentic development platform within the IDE.

## Approach / What changed

JetBrains Air is an open system that brings agentic development into the IDE without locking users into a specific agent. It works as a plugin that detects and connects existing agents (Codex, GitHub Copilot, Junie, Claude, etc.) via ACP. It provides an agentic-first UX with parallel sessions, cost tracking, temporary worktrees, and cloud run capabilities. Users can bring their own AI subscriptions or use JetBrains AI, and data goes directly to the provider.

## Takeaways

- Air is designed for parallel agent orchestration, not one-at-a-time chat, with sessions, cost visibility, and temporary worktrees.
- Air supports existing agents like Codex, GitHub Copilot, Junie, and Claude, and does not require a JetBrains AI subscription.
- Air ships with no agents installed and sends data directly to the user’s provider, not to JetBrains, and can be disabled via plugin.

## FAQ

### What is going to happen to AI Assistant?

AI Assistant will remain available and supported as a separate plugin you can install from the marketplace. Air is the future of agentic development, but AI Assistant is not being removed.

### Which agents and models are supported?

Air supports Codex, Gemini, GitHub Copilot, Claude Agent, and Junie out of the box, and many others can be connected via ACP. You can use your own third-party subscriptions or JetBrains AI.

### Can I use my Claude subscription?

Yes, you can use your Claude subscription in Air's terminal surface which opens as a full-screen IDE tab.

**Tags:** [Agentic Development](https://yomu.fyi/topic/agentic-development), [AI Agents](https://yomu.fyi/topic/ai-agents), [JetBrains](https://yomu.fyi/topic/jetbrains), [JetBrains Air](https://yomu.fyi/topic/jetbrains-air)

- Source: [Jetbrains](https://blog.jetbrains.com/ai/2026/10/air-in-ides-eap)
- Source URL: https://blog.jetbrains.com/ai/2026/10/air-in-ides-eap
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-10-01T15:00:09.582Z

[Read original post](https://blog.jetbrains.com/ai/2026/10/air-in-ides-eap)