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In the coming months, GitHub will also allow engineers to use their employer’s code base to help them autocomplete the programs they work on, Dohmke said | Photo: Bloomberg
By Dina Bass and Jackie Davalos
Microsoft Corp.’s GitHub is releasing a more expensive paid version of its artificial intelligence software development tool that can answer questions based on a company’s programming code, a feature designed to help new engineers get up to speed and empower coders experienced people to work more quickly.
GitHub, which allows programmers to collaborate on coding projects, has integrated AI into its products and services in a bid to attract more subscribers. The new Copilot Enterprise will cost $39 per user per month and offer AI chat features that should make it easier for engineers to troubleshoot problems, modernize programs and more.
“A lot of things when you join a big company are very different from how you learned them in your previous job: You have to go there and learn about the practices,” Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, said in an interview . “So you don’t have to do that anymore. You can simply ask questions and get the answers.
In the coming months, GitHub will also allow engineers to use their employer’s code base to help them autocomplete programs they work on, Dohmke said. This could be particularly useful for financial services companies or other companies that use internal programming languages not widely used elsewhere, as well as for clients with specific internal practices. Even Microsoft’s Office desktop applications use the C and C++ languages in a way that isn’t typically taught in coding schools, he said.
Microsoft has touted the successful adoption of GitHub Copilot, which builds on technology from its partner OpenAI, in its quarterly earnings updates and has used the product as a model for redesigning most of its products, including Office and Windows, around similar technologies and concepts. GitHub charges $19 per month per user for a more basic Copilot enterprise, which has 50,000 enterprise customers.
First publication: February 27, 2024 | 10:50 p.m. STI
