GitHub has revealed that its AI-powered coding assistant, Copilot, has surpassed 20 million all-time users. This includes a mix of professional developers, hobbyists, and enterprise teams who have used Copilot since its launch in 2021.
The announcement was made by GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke during a press briefing, where he said that AI will soon become as essential to developers as cloud computing and version control systems. He also stressed that AI coding tools are no longer just experimental add-ons but are becoming core to modern software development.
The milestone underscores the growing traction Copilot has gained in the programming world. GitHub has been steadily adding new features, including Copilot Chat, which offers contextual suggestions and explains code snippets, and Copilot Workspace, which can generate entire project scaffolds based on prompts. Aimed at streamlining developer workflows, these additions are helping GitHub fend off rising competition from the likes of Amazon’s CodeWhisperer and Google’s Gemini Code Assist.
According to GitHub, enterprise usage of Copilot has grown 13-fold over the past year. Over 50,000 organisations are now using the product, with notable uptake among Fortune 500 companies. The company says this is largely due to its integration with widely used platforms like Visual Studio Code, and the growing appetite among engineering leaders to boost productivity and reduce repetitive coding tasks.
While GitHub did not share how many of those 20 million users are currently active or paying subscribers, the figure reflects overall sign-ups since launch. Copilot is available via GitHub’s paid plans, with tailored pricing for individual developers, teams, and enterprise customers.
As generative AI continues to evolve, GitHub is betting on deep integration and real-world developer feedback to keep Copilot ahead of rivals. The company’s roadmap includes more intelligent context handling, tighter IDE integration, and expanded support for less commonly used languages.
Whether it maintains the lead or not, one thing is clear: GitHub Copilot is no longer a niche experiment but a mainstream tool changing the way developers write code.
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