GitHub has launched its new Copilot X feature, though you may be placed on a waitlist for a while before you get to use it.
GitHub, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2018 for $7.5 billion, is an open-source, code-sharing, and social media site used by programmers. The past few years have seen the site go from strength to strength, collaborating on new tech ventures with the likes of OpenAI.
Copilot was first announced in June 2021. It became fully available for individual developers on a subscription-based service a year later.
As artificial intelligence-powered chat features continue to dominate the industry, GitHub has sourced the latest tech for its new tool. Let’s take a look at how the feature works and how to join the ever-growing waitlist.
What is GitHub Copilot X?
GitHub has launched Copilot X, a programming assistant tool which is powered by Open AI’s GPT-4. OpenAI rolled out this ChatGPT update this month. It is their most powerful language model thus far, able to make jokes and even pass a US bar exam.
Copilot X is the latest to adopt these chat and voice interfaces. It is all to create a more personalized developer experience. It can recognize code a developer has typed and understand the error messages shown. It also provides in-depth analysis of what code blocks are meant to do, generate unit tests, and give suggestions for bug fixes.
Copilot X makes the coding experience smoother as it is embedded into an IDE.
How to join Copilot X waitlist
If you want to sign up to the waitlist for Copilot X, you can head to GitHub. They have a waitlist sign up page on the website with more information about the new tool.
GitHub describes admission to the “private beta” Copilot X chat as “limited.” It requires an active subscription to GitHub Copilot. Copilot currently costs $10/month or $100/year for an individual package. For a business package, it costs $19/month for each user. Verified students, teachers, and maintainers of popular open source projects can get GitHub Copilot for free. You can also try out Copilot with a one-time 60-day free trial.
Unfortunately, signing up does not guarantee that you will gain access to the Copilot X beta.
When will Copilot X roll out on GitHub?
It is likely that it will be another year before Copilot X shifts out of its “technical preview” and is available to the masses.
Copilot was first announced in June 2021, becoming available to subscribers exactly one year later.
If this release pattern is to be repeated for Copilot X, that means many won’t be able to enjoy the feature until March 2024.
In other news, How to get voice control for Chat GPT as new Chrome extension rolls out
