GitHub Previews Copilot Chat and Enterprise Tier for Generative AI Coding Assistant

GitHub showcased the future of the GitHub Copilot generative AI coding assistant this week, announcing the general release of GitHub Copilot Chat in December and debuting an enterprise tier for the AI pair programmer first revealed after an extended technical preview last year.

Copilot Generating

GitHub described the sweeping expansion of Copilot as a plan to infuse generative AI throughout the entire software development lifecycle. The company suggested GitHub has been “re-founded” on the back of Copilot as it evolved from an autocomplete coding assistant to a full development platform transforming how software gets built. Central to GitHub’s plans is Copilot Chat, a conversational generative AI chatbot for coding and debugging. Copilot Chat will become available to all GitHub Copilot subscribers starting in December. GitHub is also building Copilot Chat into its website and mobile app, enabling developers to query code and documentation. The other major addition to the Copilot portfolio is a subscription level designed for businesses coming in February. Copilot Enterprise will customize suggestions to internal code and data, and the AI will absorb proprietary codebases to accelerate deployments.

“We are certain this foundational transformation of the GitHub platform, and categorically new way of software development, is necessary in a world dependent on software. Every day, the world’s developers balance an unsustainable demand to both modernize the legacy code of yesterday and build our digital tomorrow. It is our guiding conviction to make it easier for developers to do it all, from the creative spark to the commit, pull request, code review, and deploy—and to do it all with GitHub Copilot deeply integrated into the developer experience,” GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke explained in a blog post. “The intersection of human and artificial intelligence will continue to define the future generations of GitHub Copilot across our platform. Everything we’re announcing is focused on one thing: bringing a holistic, productive, and seamless AI-powered developer platform to developers—no matter what you’re building.”

The company also unveiled a new partner program to connect Copilot to third-party services and data sources. Initial partners include Postman and Datadog. This aims to supercharge Copilot’s capabilities through expanded integration. On the security front, GitHub is augmenting its Advanced Security offering with AI-powered auto-remediation for vulnerabilities. Finally, the upcoming Copilot Workspace will prototype ideas into code by combining AI reasoning with codebase and project plan understanding. Integrating coding, conversation, security, and planning denotes a platform strategy versus a singular use case focus. Time will tell if the all-encompassing approach pays off. That said, there is evidence that this is the kind of ‘killer app’ for generative AI that people want. According to recent surveys, coding assistants are among the quickest tools to be adopted, and GitHub Copilot, in particular, is very popular.

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