What is GitHub Copilot? — AI Glossary

What it is: GitHub Copilot is the original AI coding assistant — an in-editor tool from Microsoft and GitHub that suggests code completions, writes functions, and answers questions about your codebase. It set the template for AI-assisted coding that Cursor and others later expanded on.
Who it is for: Software developers using VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Vim/Neovim, or Xcode who want AI assistance inside their existing editor.
Best if: You’re already a working developer with an editor you like and want AI assistance added in — not a whole new development environment.
Skip if: You’re comfortable with Cursor or Windsurf — those are AI-first editors that surpass Copilot in agentic capabilities. Want one practical AI workflow every morning? Subscribe to our free daily newsletter.

What is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is an AI pair-programming tool launched in June 2021, the result of collaboration between GitHub (Microsoft’s code-hosting platform) and OpenAI. It runs inside your code editor and suggests completions as you type — sometimes a single line, sometimes an entire function — based on the context of the file you’re working in.

Copilot was the first widely-used AI coding assistant and remained the dominant one until Cursor and other AI-first editors emerged in 2023-2024. Today, Copilot is supported in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Vim/Neovim, and Xcode, and underlies the Copilot Chat and agent features in those environments.

Why does GitHub Copilot matter?

Copilot proved that AI in the developer workflow wasn’t a gimmick. The original version was startlingly useful at autocompleting boilerplate, function bodies, and common patterns. Within months of launch, surveys showed developers writing more code, debugging less, and reporting they couldn’t imagine going back. That set the playbook every other AI coding tool has followed.

For Microsoft and GitHub, Copilot was also the first commercial AI subscription product at meaningful scale — over a million paying subscribers within the first year, growing to many millions by 2026. Its $10/month price point became the rough benchmark for personal AI tooling. Other companies (Cursor, Windsurf, Replit) compete with Copilot but rarely undercut its price.

How do you use GitHub Copilot?

Subscribe at github.com/features/copilot ($10/month individual, $19/month business, $39/month enterprise in 2026). Install the GitHub Copilot extension in your editor of choice. Copilot starts suggesting code as you type — accept with Tab, dismiss with Esc.

Features beyond inline completion:

• Copilot Chat — sidebar chat for asking questions about your code, generating tests, explaining functions
• Copilot Workspace — agentic mode that can complete multi-step tasks across files
• Copilot Voice — talk to Copilot instead of typing
• Copilot for Pull Requests — generates PR descriptions and reviews code changes

For a head-to-head comparison with the AI-first competitors, see our Claude Code vs Cursor vs Copilot guide.

Related terms

• Cursor
• Windsurf
• Claude Code
• GitHub
• OpenAI

Learn more on Beginners in AI

• Claude Code vs Cursor vs Copilot
• AI Glossary

Sources and further reading

• GitHub Copilot — official
• Copilot Documentation
• GitHub Copilot — Grokipedia

Last reviewed: May 2026. AI terminology evolves quickly — verify specifics on the official source pages above.

You may also like

• Claude Code vs Cursor vs Copilot
• AI Glossary
• Cursor
• Windsurf
• Claude Code
• GitHub