GitHub Unveils Copilot Enterprise: AI Coding Tool for Personalized Organization Assistance
GitHub, the renowned software development hosting service, has introduced Copilot Enterprise, an AI coding tool designed to provide personalized organization assistance. Copilot Enterprise expands on the existing Copilot Chat feature, which acts as a conversational assistant for developers by offering code suggestions, tips, and explanations.
The current version of Copilot Chat is limited to the code the developer is working on, but with the introduction of Copilot Enterprise, the tool integrates with a business’s code repositories and knowledge bases. This allows Copilot to provide additional context and support throughout the entire software development lifecycle, including pull requests, code reviews, and collaboration on GitHub.com.
To enhance the tool further, GitHub has incorporated documentation into Copilot’s AI capabilities. Integrating a business’s external documentation knowledge base alongside the code and configuration, Copilot gains a deeper understanding of an organization’s best practices, system architecture, and development environments. This new feature enables developers to access vital information from their organization’s documentation and enhances the accuracy and effectiveness of the code suggestions provided by Copilot.
GitHub is also introducing the ability for enterprise users to fine-tune Copilot based on their organization’s specific preferences. This customization allows organizations to tailor the AI tool to their preferred software development kits, programming languages, and libraries. By aligning Copilot with their preferred tools and technologies, organizations can ensure the code suggestions remain relevant and accurate.
Additionally, GitHub has implemented a policy engine that enables administrators to control the context in which Copilot operates. This feature ensures that sensitive areas and information are not accessed by the AI assistant unintentionally. Organizations can deploy Copilot safely, knowing that it will respect the specified boundaries and focus on the approved code and documentation sources.
GitHub is also expanding the capabilities of Copilot by integrating with third-party developer tools, online services, and external knowledge sources. Through a partner program, third-party providers such as Datastax, LaunchDarkly, Postman, Hashicorp, and Datadog can connect their services and feed data to the AI assistant, further enhancing its capabilities and expanding its usefulness.
Furthermore, GitHub is enhancing its Advanced Security offering by introducing AI-powered application security testing. This feature helps identify and fix vulnerabilities and secrets in code by automatically suggesting fixes using CodeQL, a semantic engine that analyzes code and detects security issues. The AI assistant provides developers with detailed suggestions for strengthening code security, which can be reviewed and accepted before merging.
GitHub’s AI secret scanning service is another valuable addition to the Advanced Security offering. Utilizing large language models (LLMs), the service scans code to identify accidentally leaked credentials and passwords. This capability saves developers the time-consuming task of manually searching for sensitive information and helps enhance overall code security.
GitHub Copilot Enterprise is expected to be available for general use in February 2024, with a monthly subscription cost of $39 per user. Copilot Chat will also be available in December 2023 as part of the Copilot Business subscription, priced at $19 per user per month.
With its new updates and features, GitHub aims to provide developers with an advanced AI coding tool that integrates seamlessly into their development process, increases efficiency, and enhances code quality and security. By leveraging AI capabilities and contextual knowledge, GitHub’s Copilot Enterprise offers personalized assistance to organizations and contributes to the overall improvement of software development practices.
