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Another day, another AI use case. This time, it’s from GitHub.
The developer platform and Microsoft subsidiary announced its new Copilot Autofix tool on August 14. Part of GitHub Advanced Security, Autofix will scan code for vulnerabilities and offer quicker options for remediation.
Mike Hanley, GitHub CSO, told IT Brew that the benefit of Autofix is how it can solve the issue as well as detect it. The tool provides developers with natural language explanations of the fix.
“That’s a massive time-saver, not just as a productivity improvement in the sense that it’s saving you time, but a great experience improvement because you’re going to fix more security bugs, and you’re going to understand what’s happening with them along the way,” Hanley said.
Autofix will be offered for free to open source projects and for those who already have GitHub Advanced Security. Hanley termed that a part of the company’s longstanding commitment to open source: “a unique opportunity to give back and really help drive great security outcomes for the broader open source ecosystem by giving those things away.”
In a testimonial provided by GitHub, principal engineer at health services firm Optum Kevin Cooper said his team has seen “a 60% reduction in the time spent on security-related code reviews and a 25% increase in overall development productivity.”
“This proactive approach to security helps us prevent potential issues, saving thousands of hours per month that would otherwise be spent on remediation,” Cooper said.
As IT Brew reported, Copilot tools have been a moneymaker for GitHub and its parent company, Microsoft. Copilot has “accounted for over 40% of GitHub’s revenue growth this year and is already a larger business than all of GitHub was when we acquired it,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told investors in an earnings call on July 30.