GitHub Brings Generative AI to the Platform, Starts Copilot Chat with GPT-4

This Wednesday (8), during the annual Universe 2023 event, GitHub announces artificial intelligence (AI) is now available across the platform. Starting in December this year, Copilot Chat will be part of subscriptions for organizations and developers. The company says it’s part of a “restructuring” of Copilot.

The tool has been updated with OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model and promises to provide better explanations as well as more accurate code recommendations.. Copilot Chat is a contextual tool and, in addition to acting as a kind of debugger, can help solve code problems, for example.

“Just like the introduction of Git and the creation of GitHub, this next era will build on top of GitHub Copilot,” the company said.

Copilot Chat can be accessed directly from the GitHub website or via the app for Android and iPhone (iOS) devices. The proposal is to facilitate access to the tool from different devices in multiple locations and can also use written or spoken language. Starting today but still in preview, Copilot Chat will be integrated with JetBrains.

According to the company, advertising Copilot is “ubiquitous throughout the entire software development lifecycle” and is always available in all areas of the platform. Other features in the new GitHub update include a guide to help find and fix bugs in code.

To use Copilot Chat, use the text box and type your questions, or use “https://www.tecmundo.com.br/” to use commands like “/fix”, “/doc”, “/explain” and ” /tests”, for example. It is also possible to select areas of the code to ask questions or get suggestions or to find solutions to possible problems.

More security with artificial intelligence support

Among GitHub Copilot’s security implementations, the company announced a new vulnerability prevention system based on large language models (LLM). The promise is that the tool can block malicious coding patterns in real time. These include hard-coded credentials, SQL injection, and path injection vulnerabilities.

With Copilot Chat, developers will be able to detect possible security vulnerabilities and receive detailed explanations and fix suggestions from the artificial intelligence tool. According to the company’s CEO, Thomas Dohmke, the GitHub Advanced Security update could be effective with “new AI-based application security testing capabilities designed to detect and fix vulnerabilities and secrets in code.”

GitHub Copilot Enterprise and new Workspace

The company also announced the new Copilot Enterprise during its annual event. The proposition remains the same: to make developers’ lives easier so that they spend less time on “mundane tasks” during the software development cycle.

It will be available in February 2024. GitHub Copilot Enterprise will have a subscription fee of $39 per user per month (about R$190 in direct conversion).. However, Copilot Business will continue to be available for $19 per user per month.

At that time, the company also announced GitHub Copilot Workspace. Also based on GPT-4, the tool allows you to open a topic in it and get a plan on how to implement a change. The entire workspace is editable and it is possible to direct the AI ​​to make the necessary adjustments while receiving explanations of what is being done.

Copilot Workspace also allows you to create, run and test code in real time, as well as offering automatic fixes when errors are encountered. It is worth noting that the tool allows work to be done collaboratively with others in the team. Its launch is planned to be held in 2024.

*The journalist went to San Francisco, California (USA) at the invitation of GitHub.