Github Copilot has exceeded 20 million people’s history

Github Copilot, an AI coding tool provided by Microsoft-owned Github, has now reached over 20 million users, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a revenue call for the company on Wednesday. A GitHub spokesman confirmed with TechCrunch that the figure represents “the best user ever.”

In other words, 5 million people have tried Github Copilot for the first time in the last three months. The company reported in April that the tool reached 15 million users. Microsoft and Github do not report that these 20 million people continue to use AI coding tools monthly or daily, but these metrics may be much lower.

Microsoft also reports that Github Copilot, one of the most popular AI coding tools offered today, is used by 90% of the Fortune 100. According to the company, product growth between company customers also increased by about 75% compared to the previous quarter.

AI coding tools are becoming more popular and appear to be one of the few AI products that generate significant revenue. In 2024, Nadella said Github Copilot is a larger company than Github was when it acquired Microsoft in 2018. That year, Github Copilot’s growth rate appears to have continued in a positive direction.

The world’s most popular AI coding tools still have a small user base compared to AI chatbots like ChatGpt and Gemini, which attract hundreds of millions of users each month. Of course, software engineering is more niche than the general information queries offered by AI chatbots.

That said, software engineers and their employers seem willing to be willing to pay the premiums of AI coding tools. Also, with Microsoft’s long list of enterprise customers and Github’s developer ecosystem, Github Copilot is well suited to dominate the market for enterprise AI coding tools.

Another popular AI coding tool, Cursor wants to challenge Github Copilot in the enterprise, scooping talent from fledgling AI startups. According to Bloomberg, Cursor reportedly uses the product every day in March. At the time, the company generated around $200 million in its recurring annual revenue. Today, cursors have an ARR of over $500 million, suggesting that there are many more people using the product every day.

Github Copilot and Cursor initially aimed to tackle different parts of the developer experience, but they are steadily converging on similar products.

Both companies recently introduced AI agents to review their code and caught bugs introduced by humans. Github and Cursor are trying to create AI agents that automate programmer workflows, allowing developers to offload tasks completely. Nadella said in revenue Wednesday that Github is seeing a huge momentum with AI coding agents.

Beyond Cursor, Github has many well-capitalized competitors who want to sell AI coding tools to businesses.

There is Google, which acquired the leader of AI coding startup Windsurf. Also, Devin’s maker Cognition has acquired the remaining teams at Windsurf. It goes without saying that Openai and humanity are building their own AI coding products, each with in-house AI models, Codex and Claude codes, to beat the market.

Early space is rapidly intensifying into one of AI’s most competitive markets.