GitHub Copilot will support models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI

GitHub is going multi-model for its Copilot code completion and programming tool. Developers will soon be able to choose models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI for GitHub Copilot. GitHub is also announcing Spark, an AI tool for building web apps, and updates to GitHub Copilot in VS Code, Copilot for Xcode, and more at its GitHub Universe conference today.

GitHub Copilot users on the web or VS Code can select Claude 3.5, with Gemini 1.5 Pro in the coming weeks. OpenAI’s GPT-4o, o1-preview, and o1-mini models will also be available in GitHub Copilot soon. Developers will be able to toggle between models during a conversation with Copilot Chat to find the model that’s best for a particular task.

“There is no one model to rule every scenario, and developers expect the agency to build with the models that work best for them,” says GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. “It is clear the next phase of AI code generation will not only be defined by multi-model functionality, but by multi-model choice.”

Microsoft-owned GitHub was the first to launch its AI tool called Copilot in 2021, ahead of Microsoft’s push to make Copilot the center of its AI efforts. It was the first major result of Microsoft’s initial $1 billion investment into OpenAI, and GitHub announced last week that Copilot now has more than 1 million paid subscribers. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft adopts GitHub’s multi-model approach and opens up its own Copilot AI assistant to models from rivals like Google and Anthropic.

GitHub is also announcing Spark today, an AI tool that makes it easier to build web apps using natural language. An initial prompt uses OpenAI and Anthropic models to produce live previews of what the web app will look like, and GitHub Spark users can compare versions as they make changes. GitHub Spark lets experienced developers directly manipulate code, while novice ones can create a web app entirely using natural language.

Once the app is created, you can run it on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device and also share the app with others to let people remix and build on top of Spark apps. GitHub Spark is part of GitHub’s vision to get to 1 billion developers. “For too long, there has been an unscalable barrier of entry separating a vast majority of the world’s population from building software,” says Dohmke. “With Spark, we will enable over one billion personal computer and mobile phone users to build and share their own micro apps directly on GitHub.”

GitHub is also announcing more updates to Copilot at its GitHub Universe today. Multi-file edit for GitHub Copilot in VS Code is arriving on November 1st, allowing users to make edits across multiple files at the same time using Copilot Chat. Copilot Extensions will also be available in early 2025, GitHub Copilot for Xcode enters public preview, and Copilot now has a new code review capability.