GitHub’s OpenAI-powered Copilot for Business now available for all: Check out details

The GitHub Copilot, which was previewed for the first time in 2021, is the world’s first AI developer tool. The GitHub Copilot borrows context from developer’s code to create new lines, tests, complex algorithms and even entire functions.

Backed by generative AI, GitHub works as an extensive editor that recommends code in real time. The tool works on code and natural language prompts to come up with numerous suggestions that can be accepted or rejected almost instantly. According to the makers, the tool learns along with developers to adapt according to coding styles and conventions.

OpenAI’s Codex translates nature language into code for GitHub’s Copilot for Business. From Visual Studio to Neovim, JetBrains IDEs or VS Code, those using GitHub Copilot can opt for an editor of their choice.

The free Copilot comes with improved quality and enhanced responsiveness to prompts and code suggestions. This is possible owing to the latest update to the Codex model that also offers a new security filter to make the platform’s code recommendations secure and assist developers in identifying non-secure coding patterns.

Microsoft is currently offering the new Codex model along with GPT-3.5 and Dall-E 2 to developers via Azure OpenAI Services. According to GitHub when the Copilot was introduced last year, it generated around 27 per cent of developers’ code files. At present, the average of this is 46 per cent across all programming languages that are supported except for Java which is at 61 per cent.

Although the acceptance rate for Copilot is on the lower side, it is still witnessing considerable rise. In June last year it was reported that developers on an average accepted 27 per cent suggestions and this rose to 30 per cent in September, 35 per cent in December.