Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made a major progress in the past few years, taking the center stage in technology development and becoming the most sought feature by all enterprises. Microsoft is no stranger to this, developing GitHub’s Copilot, a powerful AI tool that helped position the company as one of the most valuable enterprises in early 2024. This AI-powered productivity tool offers developers real-time coding suggestions as well as useful assistance, becoming a clear competitor to OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT. This translates into streamlined processes, increasing productivity and efficiency of both developers and teams.
Copilot has been available for enterprise customers since 2023, but only recently in 2024 has been available for educational staff, students and personal use. So how much has Microsoft’s big investment in generative AI paid off so far? In today’s article we’ll delve deep into Copilot’s stats and trends to see the impact of Microsoft’s innovative AI and what we can expect from it.
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Subscribe (it's FREE) ►GitHub Copilot Top Stats
- GitHub Copilot is the most widely adopted AI-powered developer tool
- The AI-powered coding assistant has 1.3 million paid subscribers.
- In just 2 years, Copilot has been used by over 77.000 organizations such as BBVA, FedEx, H&M, Infosys, etc.
- One third of the Fortune 500 companies have adopted Copilot.
- Copilot is responsible for 40% of GitHub’s revenue growth
- GitHub’s current revenue is $2 billion.
- Copilot has become a larger business than GitHub when it was acquired by Microsoft.
- The number of Copilot users increases more than 60% every Q.
- Over 1000 paid customers have used Copilot for security
- 55% of developers prefer using GitHub’s Copilot
(source)
How Many Copilot Users Are There?
Microsoft’s Copilot is up to a good start, showing an exponential increase in users. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, stated back in 2023 that Copilot achieved over 1 million paid users in more than 37.000 organizations. The numbers increased in 2024, reaching over 1.3 million subscribers and experiencing a rise of 60% quarter-over-quarter.
GitHub Copilot Customers By Country
Microsoft’s generative AI is widely used worldwide and already adopted by one third of the Fortune 500 companies. A recent research made by TheirStack shows how Copilot is being used in 38 countries, with the US having over 211 companies actively using its service. The list is closely followed by the United Kingdom (38), Germany (30) and France (21).
GitHub’s Website Traffic
As shown by the stats above, GitHub draws millions of developers from around the world. According to HypeStat, around 1.5% of Internet users visit GitHub, getting 16.5 million daily visitors and 94 million page impressions per day. The average GitHub user visits around 6 pages and spends almost 7 minutes on the site. With a bounce rate of 37.31%, these stats show how the platform has a high engagement rate that promises to improve month after month.
GitHub’s Copilot Revenue
During Microsoft’s quarterly earnings call, Satya Nadella reported the company acquired $245 billion in revenue. It was also revealed that GitHub’s annual revenue hit $2 billion, driven exclusively by Copilot. Microsoft’s Generative AI accounted for over 40% of this growth and according to Nadella, it is already a larger business than all of GitHub’s when it was first acquired.
While there are no specific numbers on Copilot’s revenue, it is possible to make a forecast on what to expect in 2024. As a whole, and with the adoption of Copilot Pro subscriptions to individual users, it is estimated that Copilot will contribute between $2.39 billion to $9.2 billion, 1% and 4% of Microsoft’s total revenue respectively.
(source)
In What Areas GitHub’s Copilot Delivers Most Value?
Copilot is aimed to help developers and streamline enterprises’ processes. In a recent survey made by Akvelon, GitHub Copilot is said to be most efficient in ongoing code writing. The survey also mentions how Microsoft’s AI was also able to successfully write methods such as sorting projects.
How GitHub Copilot Affects the Quality of the Code?
Overall, Copilot has outstanding results in its code enhancements and suggestions. According to a recent survey, 20.7% experienced a positive impact when asking Copilot for a code. 44.8% also state that they noticed a slightly positive impact on the results. However, the survey also shows how 6.9% of the surveyed experienced a slightly negative impact on the code suggestions, although the numbers might be related to the fact they didn’t have enough time to master the tool.
How Efficient Is GitHub’s Copilot?
55% of developers recommend using Copilot due its intuitive interface and good results. According to a recent survey made by Akvelon, developers using Copilot were able to generate 10-25% of their code with Microsoft’s AI. Additionally, nearly 20% of the surveyed achieved up to 50% automatically generated efficient code.
As shown, Copilot is known for streamlining development processes thanks to its real-time coding suggestions. Since studies state that a 10% increase can enhance developer efficiency, any number beyond that point would prove Copilot’s usefulness. The results of the previous survey shows that the coding speed of the majority of respondents increased an average of 25%. Furthermore, 14% of the surveyed stated that they felt a speedup in coding of 50%.
As a result, 81% of the surveyed state they experienced a productivity growth for coding and testing thanks to GitHub’s Copilot. Developers also stated that there’s been a time reduction for completing a task of 16%. As a whole, there’s been an experience boost of 50%.
GitHub’s Copilot Vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot
While both tools carry the “Copilot” name and leverage AI to enhance productivity, they serve different purposes and audiences.
GitHub Copilot:
- Target Audience: Software developers and engineers.
- Primary Function: Provides real-time coding suggestions and assists in writing code across multiple programming languages.
- Integration: Works within code editors like Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Neovim, and JetBrains IDEs.
Microsoft 365 Copilot:
- Target Audience: General Microsoft 365 users, including professionals across various industries.
- Primary Function: Assists in creating documents, analyzing data, designing presentations, managing emails, and summarizing meetings.
- Integration: Embedded within Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams.
Choosing Between GitHub Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot:
- For Developers: GitHub Copilot is the ideal tool for coding assistance and improving software development efficiency.
- For Business Professionals: Microsoft 365 Copilot enhances productivity within the suite of Microsoft Office applications, making it suitable for tasks related to documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and communication.
What about Microsoft 365 Copilot?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI-powered assistant integrated into Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. It is designed to enhance productivity by assisting users in creating documents, analyzing data, generating presentations, managing emails, and summarizing meetings.
Adoption and Growth Statistics
The Copilot ecosystem is expanding through integrations with independent software vendors such as Atlassian, Mural, and Trello. In the commercial space, Microsoft now has more than 400 million paid Office 365 seats, many of which have access to Copilot features, enhancing productivity across organizations like BP, Elanco, and ING Bank (Source: Windows Central).
The number of people who use Microsoft 365 Copilot daily at work nearly doubled quarter over quarter as they use it to complete tasks faster, hold more effective meetings, and automate business workflows and processes. 365 Copilot customers increased more than 60% quarter over quarter (Source: Fool.com).
Key Features of Microsoft 365 Copilot:
- Content Generation: Assists in drafting documents and emails.
- Data Analysis: Helps in analyzing data and generating visualizations in Excel.
- Presentation Creation: Aids in designing slides and suggesting layouts in PowerPoint.
- Email Management: Organizes and prioritizes emails in Outlook.
- Meeting Summaries: Provides summaries and action points from Teams meetings.
- Image Generation and Business Chat: Users can generate images directly in Business Chat using natural language prompts, streamlining communication with visual content (Source: Microsoft Community Hub).
- Private Copilot Chats in Loop: Users can interact with Copilot privately for brainstorming and questions without disturbing teammates, creating a focused and collaborative environment.
Microsoft has a Clear Commitment to 365 Copilot
Microsoft has introduced several new features and resources to boost productivity with Copilot. The Microsoft Copilot Academy is now available to all Copilot-licensed users, providing a structured learning experience to help users enhance their proficiency with Copilot without needing a Viva license.
Additionally, users now have access to Business Chat in more places, including Outlook mobile and Mac, enabling them to summarize emails and prepare for meetings. Copilot in Word also received enhancements allowing users to reference longer content blocks and quickly get started with example prompts, further accelerating productivity (Source: Microsoft Community Hub).
In fact it’s been updated practically monthly since release and their feature roadmap shows no sign of slowing down on implementing more and more copilot features.
The Future of GitHub’s Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot
The advent of AI in the workplace is no longer a speculation but a reality. Its vast potential, accuracy, and effectiveness are the key factors of their early adoption, aiding all kinds of demands and improving the overall performance of enterprises around the world. Microsoft Copilot is no exception, presenting a compelling vision for AI assistance seamlessly integrated in both development and productivity environments. Its ability to streamline processes, create coding, and automate tasks has proven a game-changer in the development and business industries. With a brilliant future ahead of it, Microsoft’s Copilots stand as strong contenders in the race for AI domination.
