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GitHub Copilot introduces Agent Mode, teases its first autonomous agent

GitHub Copilot is now also offering Gemini 2.0 Flash to the model picker for all users.

The platform also unveiled the first look of Copilot’s new autonomous agent, codenamed Project Padawan. (Image: GitHub)

Developer platform GitHub has hopped on the AI agent bandwagon. The platform on Friday, announced that it was bringing Agent Mode for GitHub Copilot, its code completion and programming tool. With Agent Mode, the GitHub Copilot gets an AI-powered assistant for coding that can iterate on its own code, recognise errors, and fix them.

The company, announcing the new development, said that ever since the launch of GitHub Copilot in 2021, it has been working toward making developers’ lives easier with an AI assistant programmer that helps them in writing better code. According to GitHub, the name Agent Mode reflects its belief that AI is not replacing the developer, instead it is always by their side.

“And like any good first officer, Copilot can also fly by itself: for example, when providing pull request feedback, autofixing security vulnerabilities, or brainstorming on how to implement an issue,” the company wrote on its official website.

Announcing the new launch, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke, took to his X platform. “Today, we are infusing the power of agentic AI into the GitHub Copilot experience, elevating Copilot from pair to peer programme,” wrote Dohmke.

Today, we are infusing the power of agentic AI into the GitHub Copilot experience, elevating Copilot from pair to peer programmer 🤖

(1/4)https://t.co/zr6l3uaTmb

— Thomas Dohmke (@ashtom) February 6, 2025

Dohmke revealed that the new Agent Mode in VS Code, Copilot goes beyond the initial request, completing all necessary substacks and even inferring unspecified tasks. “Agent mode allows Copilot to iterate on its own code, propose and guide terminal commands, and analyze and resolve run-time errors. Available today for VS Code Insiders,” Dohmke wrote in his thread on X.

Also Read | GitHub hits 150 million developers, launches free Copilot tier in VS code

Along with upgrading GitHub Copilot with more agentic AI, the company also announced General Availability of Copilot Edits in VS Code. Dohmke said that the multi-file editing tool allows one to make changes across multiple files by prompting in natural language.

The platform is also adding Gemini 2.0 Flash to the model picker for all Copilot users. It now offers OpenAI’s GPT-4o, o1 or o3-mini, Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet. GitHub also teased its new autonomous agent codenamed Project Padawan. “A sneak peek at our SWE agent and how we envision these types of agents will fit into the GitHub user experience,” Dohmke said.

The CEO said that when the autonomous agent is released later this year, it will allow users to directly assign issues to GitHub Copilot, and have it produce fully-tested pull requests.

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artificial intelligence