AI Coding More Accessible to Developers as Copilot Gains Popularity

GITHUB, owned by Microsoft, has expanded access to its artificial intelligence chatbot, Copilot, for programming to a larger number of users. The tool was initially launched in July as a public beta version for corporate users. Yesterday, GitHub announced the launch of public beta versions for individual Copilot users in Visual Studio and VSCODE.

Github Copilot is an AI assistant that allows users to seek help while writing code. According to the GITHUB blog, developers and individuals can now use GitHub Copilot to learn new languages or frameworks, fix errors, or get answers to coding questions using simple and natural language — all within their integrated development environment (IDE).

For those who are not yet subscribers and want to try this functionality, the Copilot subscription for individual users on GitHub is priced at $10 per month or $100 per year.

In recent months, chatbots with artificial intelligence to assist in programming have gained popularity. Google launched its own chatbot for Android developers in May, while Amazon offers a similar tool called CodeWhisperer.