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March 2023, IDC #US50451323 MARKET NOTE GitHub Copilot for Business Promises to Modernize Development in the Enterprise by Enabling Developers to Collaborate with AI-Based and Large Language Models Arnal Dayaratna EXECUTIVE SNAPSHOT FIGURE 1 Executive Snapshot: GitHubCopilot for BusinessPromises to Modernize Development in the Enterprise by Enabling Developers to Collaborate with AI-Based and Large Language Models Source: IDC, 2023 ©2023 IDC #US50451323 2 IN THIS MARKET NOTE On February 14, 2023, GitHub announced the general availability of Copilot for Business, roughly two months after the December2022announcement of the general availability of Copilot for Business for customers that already had invoiced GitHub accounts. The February announcement means that organizations can now purchase GitHub Copilot for Business licenses online, even if they do not use GitHub. GitHub Copilot for Business represents an implementation of GitHub Copilot, the AI-based pair programmer that delivers autocomplete suggestions to developers as they code, as well as suggestions derived from comments made by developers. Powered by the OpenAI codex LLM thatistrained on billions of lines of source code and natural language, GitHub Copilot delivers coding suggestions andcompletesfunctions that accelerate developer velocity and productivity. GitHub Copilot for Business containsGitHub's February updates to Copilot such asan improved artificial intelligence (AI)model that delivers higher-quality suggestions and security filtering capabilities that block and remediate insecure code. Moreover, GitHub Copilot for Business featuresa simple monthly licensing model andpolicy management capabilities for organizations as well asenhanced privacy and support for corporate proxy protocols. IDC'S POINT OF VIEW Licensing, Organizationwide Policy Management, and Security and Privacy Capabilities GitHub Copilot for Business features a simple licensing model whereby organizations can purchase it for $19 per userpermonth. The benefit of this licensing model is a simplified line of sight into the scaling of pricing for larger populations of developers. The simplicity of its licensing model is accompanied by functionality that empowers organizations to deftly manage GitHubCopilot implementations by means of centralized policy controls. This ability to centrally manage policy-based implementations of GitHub Copilot constitutes one of the most important attributes of GitHub Copilot for Business because organizations need not concern themselves with the minutiae of individual deployments of Copilot but can instead nimbly manage fleets of users from a single pane of glass. The operational agility conferred upon organizations by the ability to use policy to manage the use of Copilot reduces the burden on enterprise IT regarding the operational management of GitHub Copilot for Business at scale. In addition, business users enjoy the benefits of enhanced privacy because GitHub does not store code snippets that are transmitted from a developer's integrated development environment (IDE) to GitHub to enable the generation of code suggestions. BecauseGitHub does not retain code snippets transmitted to it by IDEs within organizations that use Copilot for Business, neither GitHub nor OpenAI will have access to code created within an enterprise thatmay confer upon it a competitive advantage in the market landscape in which it operates. The enhanced privacy specific to Copilot for Business means that organizations need not fear that its proprietary code will ever be directly or indirectly shared with other organizations, either as the basis for future code suggestions or in some other modality. Another important attribute of GitHub Copilot for Business is the availability of AI-powered security vulnerability identification and remediation functionality that is coextensive with the functionality found ©2023 IDC #US50451323 3 in GitHubCopilot for Individuals. GitHub Copilot suggestions are more secure because they avoid coding patterns that are known for security vulnerabilities such as hardcoded credentials and SQL and path injections. By preemptively blocking insecure code suggestions, GitHub Copilot for Business enables developers tofeel confident that the coding suggestions they are incorporating into the solutions they are building are secure. The availability of augmented security functionality in GitHub Copilot for Businessillustrates the deepened integration of DevSecOps functionality into contemporary development and the concomitant foregrounding of security considerations as central to development. According to IDC data from PaaSView and the Developer 2022: Worldwide Survey Findings (IDC #US49456422, July 2022), developers currently spend 10% of their time working on the integration of security-related considerations into development. The augmented security functionality in GitHub Copilot for Business has the potential toincrease the efficiency and value of time developers spend on security-related tasks and responsibilities. Given the importance of security to development within organizations, the availability of augmented security capabilities mitigates concerns that Copilot generates insecure coding suggestions. Implications for Development in the Enterprise Modernization of Contemporary Development Practices in the Enterprise Widespread adoption of GitHub Copilot for Business has the potential to revolutionize the developer experience for enterprise developers by enablingtheir engagement with AI-based developer tools. For example, GitHub Copilot for Business allowsenterprise developers to review and evaluate AI-based code suggestions as opposed to using manual searches conducted using third-party resources such as Google search and StackOverflow. Moreover, developers will need to acquire competency with respect to the optimization of the generation of outputs from AI-based developer tools. The adoption of GitHub Copilot for Business promises to accelerate adoption of AI-based development within the enterprise and,correspondingly, upskill developers regarding the value of AI for code generation and application development. Deepened adoption of AI in the enterprise promises to foreground the capabilities of AI-based developer tools and,specifically, skills such as how to optimize outputs and manage the quality of AI-assisted code development. Expanded adoption of Copilot for Business promises to modernize the developer experience by requiring developers to acquire and sharpen skills related to the integration of AI in the development experience. This modernization of the developer experience promises a future wherein developers can expect to routinely produce higher-quality code at a faster pace because of advances in developer tools. Organizational Considerations The adoption of Copilot for Business will likely catalyze organization-specific conversations about best practices for collaborating with Copilot andobtaining high-quality outputs quickly and efficiently. Given the celerity with which large-scale language models are updated and augmented, organizations may well need to establish centers of excellence dedicated to generative AI developer tools. All this means that the adoption of GitHub Copilot for Business will require organizations to rethink methodologies for upskilling and reskilling developers in addition to keeping them motivated to deepen their experience with this technology. The need to upskill and reskill developers may require organizations to designate GitHub Copilot for Business champions who are tasked with the responsibility of illustrating and documenting best practices for its use. In addition, GitHub Copilot for ©2023 IDC #US50451323 4 Business champions will take responsibility for illustrating the intersection between Copilot's intelligent suggestion functionality and the specificities of the organization's development use cases and coding styles. As such, GitHub Copilot for Business champions begin the work of elaborating on ways to personalize the pair programming tool to reflect an organization's styles of coding andthe needs of its constituent use cases. New Leadership Personas Another important consequence of the adoption of GitHub Copilot for Business within enterprises is the intensification of the need to create new leadership personas whocan manage the profusion of new questions and complexities that arise as a result of the use of generative AI technologies. Examples of such personas include the chief artificial intelligence officer and the chief generative AI officer because of the importance of executive-level resources that can develop, execute,and iteratively manage strategies related to the adoption of these technologies. Metrics for Measuring Developer Success Increased adoption of Copilot for Business will change the metrics and methodologies by which development teams are measured. For example, as autogenerated code increasingly takes responsibility for the generation of the majority of code within digital solutions, organizations will need to transition their metrics for measuring developer performance toward KPIsthat are more closely associated with the efficacy of development-related contributions made by developersand the speed with which those contributions are delivered, as opposed to antiquated metrics such as lines of code. In addition, organizations will need to measure the skill with which developers interact both with Copilot and other generative AI developer tools, particularly with respect to their ability to expediently create prompts that generate high-quality suggestions, as well the facility with which they can revise code generated by a machine. Looking Ahead: GitHub Copilot X On March 22, GitHub announced GitHub Copilot X, its vision to extend GitHub Copilot to more phases of the software development lifecycle, starting with chat and voice functionality, pull requests, command-line development, and queries about documentation. Moreover, it delivers query functionality within code editors that is analogous to ChatGPT's ability to respond to a multitude of queries and types of directions. New GitHub Copilot features now available in technical preview include: A chat interface that empowers developers to better understand, rewrite,and debug code and generate unit tests The automation of AI-generated tags and textual descriptions of pull requests based on data about code changes(In addition, GitHub Copilot will automate the suggestion of new tests for pull requests as necessary, as well as their subsequent generation.) The ability to use natural language to generate code from the command line as well as query documentation GitHub Copilot's empowerment of developers to use natural language to both understand and generate code creates a more intuitive, frictionless,and streamlined developer experience. The indigenous availability of a ChatGPT-like query interface within the code editor increases developer productivity by absolving developers of the need to switch contexts and leverage a third-party website such as Google or Stack Overflow. In addition, its ability to enhance pull request descriptions and
