Tips and Tricks

How to Set Up a Fully Local AI in Visual Studio

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May 19, 2026
VA Intelligence is Visual Assist’s local AI feature. It runs Gemma3 on your GPU through Ollama, both bundled and managed by Visual Assist itself. No API keys, no cloud round-trip, no telemetry pipeline waiting to be audited by your security team. By the end of this guide you’ll have two features wired up inside Visual Studio: Explain with AI and Change Code with AI. If you’ve…
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NewsTips and Tricks

Visual Assist’s AI Assistant: Things You Can Do with VA Intelligence Right Now

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April 23, 2026
If you’ve been following Visual Assist for a while, you might have noticed something a little different about the last few releases. Alongside the navigation improvements, refactoring updates, and parser optimizations, there’s a quieter but important thread running through it all: VA Intelligence. We introduced Explain with AI a few releases back, and with 2026.3 we just shipped Change…
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Tips and Tricks

Why Are Pointers Used in C++? A Practical Guide for Modern Developers

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February 4, 2026
Pointers confuse a lot of C++ developers, especially early on. Many people learn Java or Python first, where memory feels invisible and safe. Then C++ shows you addresses, lifetimes, and crashes, and it feels unnecessary. You have seen this question on Reddit and Stack Overflow many times. Why are pointers used in C++ when they seem to break things so easily? The honest answer is that pointers are…
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NewsTips and Tricks

Writing Safer C++: Introducing Visual Assist’s New Code Safety Inspections

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December 5, 2025
C++ Safety is one of the most important conversations happening in software right now. From industry leaders to government agencies, including recent guidance coming from the U.S. government, there is a renewed call to strengthen memory safety and reduce classes of bugs that have historically plagued C and C++ projects. But here is the reality: C++ remains one of the most critical languages in the…
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