GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered pair programmer that provides code suggestions, chat, and agentic capabilities directly in the IDE. The service now uses multiple AI models from different providers instead of a single model.
What is GitHub Copilot?
GitHub Copilot analyzes the context of the current code and generates matching suggestions for functions, classes, tests, and documentation. Developers can accept suggestions or request alternatives.
The service goes beyond simple code completion: Copilot Chat lets you ask questions about code and request explanations. In Agent Mode, Copilot works more autonomously, reading multiple files across the project, proposing cross-file changes, running terminal commands, and responding to build or test failures with its own fix suggestions.
Core Features
- Code completion: Line- and function-level suggestions in real time
- Chat interface: Copilot Chat for explanations, code reviews, and refactoring
- Agent Mode: More autonomous work across multiple files, including terminal execution and error fixing
- Multi-model support: Choose between models from multiple providers depending on plan and task
- Test and documentation generation: Suggestions for unit tests, docstrings, and comments
- Coding agent: Delegate tasks that Copilot handles in the background and submits as a pull request for review
Typical Use Cases
Developers use Copilot to accelerate repetitive coding tasks, explore unfamiliar APIs, and reduce context switching. It is particularly valuable when working with unfamiliar APIs or libraries, and for larger, cross-file refactoring through Agent Mode.
Benefits
- Increased productivity through less manual coding and autonomous agent capabilities
- Flexible model selection based on task requirements for quality or speed
- More consistent code through suggestions grounded in project context
- Integrates into existing IDE and Git workflows
Integration with innFactory
As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, innFactory helps you adopt GitHub Copilot: enterprise rollout, policy configuration, model and plan selection, and best practices for teams, including integration with Azure DevOps.
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
Which AI models power GitHub Copilot?
Copilot is now multi-model: depending on the task, users can choose between models from the GPT, Claude, and Gemini families, among others. Which models are available depends on the subscribed plan.
What plans are available and what do they cost?
For individual developers there is a free tier with a limited quota, plus paid Pro, Pro+, and Max plans with increasing usage allowances and access to more models. Organizations can choose Business and Enterprise plans with centralized management. Some plans also include usage-based AI credits for heavier agent use.
Is my code safe?
With Copilot Business and Enterprise, code snippets are not used for model training by default. Organizations can additionally configure content exclusions, audit logs, and data retention policies.
Which IDEs and languages are supported?
Copilot supports Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Neovim, Eclipse, and Xcode, as well as the command line via the GitHub CLI. It supports virtually all common programming languages, with especially mature support for Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, C#, and Java.
What is the difference between Chat and Agent Mode?
Copilot Chat answers questions and proposes code changes that developers apply manually. Agent Mode works more autonomously: it reads multiple files, proposes cross-file changes, runs terminal commands, and fixes issues on its own, for example when a build fails.
Note: All product information on this page has been compiled with care, but is provided without guarantee and may be outdated or incomplete. Cloud services evolve rapidly — features, pricing, SLAs, and availability change frequently. Authoritative and up-to-date information can only be found on the official product page of Azure (official documentation). This page does not represent an offer by Azure.
