GitHub Copilot: New Gen Coding Agent

Introduction

GitHub Copilot is the world's first large-scale generative AI application in the field of information technology. In 2025, it evolved from a code-assistance tool into a fully capable and autonomous programming agent, ushering in a new era known as the "Agentic Web."

AI-powered Transformation of the Software Industry

GitHub Copilot is deeply integrated with Visual Studio Code (hereafter "VS Code"), mainstream IDEs, and asynchronous programming agents. It introduces new capabilities to GitHub Models, including prompt management, lightweight evaluation, and enterprise-grade governance. By eliminating the inefficiencies of multi-window switching, it enables seamless cross-platform collaboration—ushering developers into a new era of "Human Intelligence + Artificial Intelligence," marked by synergistic workflows and exponential productivity gains.

Today, GitHub Copilot can automatically analyze codebases and execute a wide range of low-to medium-complexity tasks—such as adding features, fixing bugs, expanding test coverage, and refactoring code. It submits changes via pull requests (PRs), ensuring process clarity, behavioral transparency, and controllable outcomes.

With its sustained interactive capabilities (e.g., rewriting legacy programs for new architectures), unified interface, and comprehensive support for code generation and optimization, GitHub Copilot has become a powerful engine for accelerating product innovation and driving transformation across the software industry.

Empowering Over 20 Million Developers Worldwide

As a continuously evolving and powerful tool that significantly boosts development efficiency, improves code quality, offers intelligent suggestions, and supports "multi-user×multi-agent" collaboration, GitHub Copilot is now used by 90% of Fortune 100 companies—with enterprise adoption continuing to grow rapidly.

Thanks to its technical maturity, rapid updates, and strong scalability, the GitHub Copilot programming agent has been adopted by over 20 million developers worldwide—with more than 5 million new users joining in the past quarter alone.

In May 2025, Microsoft announced the open-sourcing of GitHub Copilot Chat's extension code under the MIT license, while integrating its core AI capabilities directly into Visual Studio Code. This move empowers developers to freely view, modify, and distribute the extension code; enables enterprises to tailor it to their specific needs; and invites the broader community to collaboratively update and optimize its functionality.

Transforming How Software Is Built, Maintained, and Evolved Across Its Entire Lifecycle

GitHub is the world's largest platform for code hosting and collaboration, serving a global community of approximately 100 million developers. Among them, over 20% have adopted the GitHub Copilot programming agent—a figure that continues to rise steadily.

GitHub Copilot is poised to exert a lasting and profound influence on the software development process and lifecycle. From an economic perspective, it helps enterprises reduce development costs, shorten delivery cycles, and enhance competitiveness. Socially, it liberates developers from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-value, innovation-driven work. Ecologically, it promotes more efficient resource utilization, reduces redundant code, and improves software sustainability.

The widespread adoption of GitHub Copilot not only accelerates digital transformation across industries but also strengthens collaboration and growth within the global developer community. It represents a major technological breakthrough and serves as a catalytic engine driving the evolution of the software industry.

Helping Millions of Developers Engage in More Meaningful Work

Survey data shows that AI-generated code is 55% faster than manual programming, and 75% of respondents are satisfied with the software development process supported by GitHub Copilot. Looking ahead, more and more developers will be able to channel their talent and energy into higher-value creative work. Under this new paradigm of human-AI collaboration, the core role of developers is evolving—from "code laborers" to "code directors," and even "one-person entrepreneur."