A tech giant has launched an artificial intelligence-driven chatbot that will be available to 1.4 million Australian developers, among more than 100 million worldwide.
Microsoft-owned GitHub used an annual tech meet in San Francisco to announce the general release of Copilot Chat to speed up the development of games, apps and other software.
Test flights began in March for the idea of having a built-in conversational assistant on the coding platform to help every person and company in a world dependent on software.
Enterprises will be able to rapidly replace clunky and vulnerable code from last century that is still propping up banking, telecommunications, energy and other essential services in Australia and other advanced economies.
"AI is now the electricity powering the world's developers," CEO Thomas Dohmke said in the opening keynote at GitHub Universe 2023.
"We simply have to make it easier for developers to do it all," he said.
Making a surprise appearance, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella introduced himself as the "biggest super fan" of Copilot.
"All of us want to make sure that the people we work with have the best tools ... it's about, ultimately, removing some of the drudgery and bringing the job back," he said.
Mr Nadella said AI is fundamentally changing what the digital economy means, with cultural change to sweep through the way people and organisations work.
"Pretty much everybody is a digital company and a software company," he said.
"My dream is to empower a billion people, and then the other billions around these people, who are all collaborating."
The company's survey of 2000 developers found those using GitHub Copilot are already 55 per cent faster, more likely to finish a task and almost three-quarters are more "in the flow" when working.
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs once described the computer as "bicycles for the mind".
"Now humans get to jointly partner with machines to make big ideas even easier to deliver," Mr Dohmke said.
"And I think it's just the beginning."
While ChatGPT has rapidly become a household name, Copilot and other code whisperers have been working behind the scenes to supercharge the development of digital instructions or source code that wraps around many everyday activities.
He said Copilot Chat would transform GitHub into a developer platform driven by generative artificial intelligence.
GitHub gets its name from being a platform, or hub, for millions of developers who are building software around the world, which allows engineers to collaborate on code.
Already, the number of software developers using GitHub in Australia has surged by one fifth this year to 1.4 million.
The "git" refers to an open-source version control tool created almost 20 years ago to track changes when coding, not the "git" or fool referred to in Aussie slang.
"Open source and Git have fundamentally transformed how we build software," Mr Dohmke said.
So-called open source code can be seen and modified by anyone, typically at no cost to the user who generally wants to enhance it or help someone else solve a tricky programming puzzle.
In contrast, a company's proprietary software is tightly controlled with strict access around who can make changes.
But enterprises, including some of Australia's largest banks, are increasingly looking to open source for a quicker way to keep up with consumer demands.
Microsoft bought GitHub five years ago in a $US7.5 billion deal that was a jackpot for the startup's founders and strategically essential for the tech giant's push for AI dominance.
Copilot Chat will allow developers to type or speak to their AI assistant on iPhone and Android devices.
"We will be a consequential leap closer to an age where developers can use AI as a second brain to stream their creativity into creation in minutes, all with natural language," Mr Dohmke said.
The reporter travelled to San Francisco as a guest of GitHub.
