GitHub Copilot Chat opened to individual developers

Three months ago, GitHub brought Copilot Chat, its programming-focused chatbot similar to ChatGPT, out of the closed preview stage, making it available to organizations with a Copilot for Business subscription. Today, the company is taking it a step further by opening up the beta version of Copilot Chat to all current individual GitHub Copilot subscribers in Visual Studio and VS Code. Copilot costs $10 per month for individual users, and Copilot Chat is a free addition to an existing subscription.

Like similar chatbots, Copilot Chat sits in the sidebar of the IDE, and developers can use it to have lengthy conversations about programming in general, but more importantly, they can also ask about the code they’re currently working on in the IDE. It’s the context, as GitHub stated at the chat launch, that makes Copilot a more useful tool than a regular chat assistant.

Integrated together, GitHub Copilot Chat and the GitHub Copilot pair programmer form a powerful AI-assistant capable of helping every developer build at the speed of their minds in the natural language of their choice. We believe this cohesion will form the new centerpiece of the software development experience, fundamentally reducing boilerplate work and designating natural language as a new universal programming language for every developer on the planet, – writes Shuying Zhao, vice president of product management at GitHub.

GitHub notes that common uses for Copilot Chat include real-time recommendations that offer best practices, tips and solutions tailored to the code a developer is currently working on, help analyzing code and fixing security issues – all without having to break away from the IDE.

In today’s announcement, Zhao notes that GitHub aims to use “natural language as the new universal programming language” that will democratize software development.