Microsoft Plans Security Features, Wider Release for Its OpenAI-Powered Coding Tool

ChatGPT has generated headlines and hype since its release last year, with its humanlike responses to written prompts. But the business impact of the technology behind the chatbot may first emerge in a different arena: software development.

In 2021, Microsoft-owned GitHub, a popular repository for open-source programs, and OpenAI, creator of the artificial intelligence technology that powers ChatGPT, launched Copilot, a tool that suggests lines of code while a programmer is typing. Last year, Microsoft began offering Copilot to a handful of its largest corporate customers and to individual developers for $10 a month or $100 a year.

Microsoft plans to make Copilot available to all enterprises “in the very near future” and is developing new features aimed at cybersecurity and preventing plagiarism, said Ryan J. Salva, GitHub’s vice president of product, in an interview with The Information. More broadly, GitHub wants to make Copilot a ubiquitous tool for developers and an indispensable part of the code-building process.