Back in July, the Microsoft-owned code and developer site GitHub announced the public beta of GitHub Copilot Chat. However, that beta was initially restricted to enterprise companies and organizations.
Today, GitHub announced that the generative AI service is finally available for individual users. The public beta is also free to access.
In today's blog post, GitHub stated:
Now, teams of developers and individuals alike can use GitHub Copilot Chat to learn new languages or frameworks, troubleshoot bugs, or get answers to coding questions in simple, natural language outputs—all without leaving the IDE. By reducing the need for context switching, it streamlines the development process, which helps developers maintain their focus and momentum.
Some of the features developers can try out with GitHub Copilot Chat include real-time code analysis and explanations of code snippets. The chatbot can also suggest some simple troubleshooting solutions, and it can also offer coders ways to fix security issues in their projects.
At the moment GitHub Copilot Chat is supported in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code editors. Members who are not currently part of the GitHub beta programs can get info on how sign up and get started at this support page.
Much like its parent company Microsoft, GitHub has been going all out to offer generative AI Copilot services for its developers and companies. GitHub Copilot first launched in June 2022, and it uses generative AI to help developers generate lines of code for their projects.
In February 2023, GitHub Copilot for Business was launched, which offered features that the normal GitHub Copilot did not, including simple license management, organization-wide policy management, "Industry-leading" privacy, and Corporate proxy support.
In March, GitHub Copilot X was launched, which used OpenAI's GPT-4 to add chatbot-based AI to help developers with their coding. It will be interesting to see how GitHub continues to expand its AI features.
