Adoption % – Have Developers Embraced GitHub Copilot?

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It’s been almost 2 years since I first blogged about GitHub Copilot and how I wondered how much it would change the enterprise development space. Given the huge adoption and advancement of other AI tools in the workforce, I thought it would be interesting to review my initial thoughts on the tool and re-test the temperature amongst the SSW team.

As software developers, we’re used to new tools, but when GitHub Copilot first dropped, I could sense that while they were excited by the prospect of having an AI Copilot do their grunt work, they were also not ready to adopt it on a large scale.

Has the temperature changed? 🔥

2 years ago when I last surveyed developers at SSW, over half of the developers answered the survey, and I learned that a huge percentage of them still hadn’t even used Copilot.

Figure: In 2022 at SSW 48% of developers were not using Copilot at all, 27% were using it weekly

Now at the end of 2024, just about every coder at SSW is using AI to help them write, understand, and summarise code.

Bar Chart of 2024 survey
Figure: You can see in 2024 that 0 developers aren’t using it at all, while 89% of developers are now using it weekly

This seems to be a trend in the industry overall. According to Microsoft Financial Reports for 2024, more than 50,000 organizations have now adopted GitHub Copilot so far.

On a more individual level, GitHub believes that since bringing Copilot to market, it has helped developers code up to 55% faster and has made 85% of developers feel more confident in their code quality.

In a study they did on Accenture developers, they said Copilot had:

  • Improved developer satisfaction. 90% of developers found they were more fulfilled with their job when using GitHub Copilot, and 95% said they enjoyed coding more with Copilot’s help.
  • Quickly adopted by developers. Over 80% of Accenture participants successfully adopted GitHub Copilot, with a 96% success rate among initial users. 43% found it “extremely easy to use.”

This data is certainly corroborated by the numbers you can see in my survey of the SSW developers and backed up by my conversations.

Is Copilot king? 👑

Copilot now has a few real competitors, and from my survey, the SSW team has tested or used some of them. I know Codeium has some great features that one team loved on a client project, and a few others like Cursor, CodeWhisperer, Intellicode, Open AI Codex, and of course, ChatGPT were also mentioned.

As you can see from the table below, GitHub Copilot is by far the leader in the space for SSW Developers.

Figure: A survey of how much SSW’ers use AI and which tools
Bar Chart of results from GitHub research of Accenture devs
Figure: From the developers at Accenture who were surveyed, more than 50% found it “extremely” helpful

Conclusion: Copilot’s evolution and its place in development 🤔

Over the past two years, GitHub Copilot has evolved from an intriguing new tool to a near-essential part of a developer’s toolkit for the SSW team, and beyond. The skepticism and hesitation that once surrounded it have largely given way to widespread adoption, with most developers now embracing AI tools as part of their daily workflow.

The data paints a clear picture: tools like Copilot not only save time, but also boost confidence, and even the joy of coding.

While alternatives like Codeium, Amazon CodeWhisperer, and ChatGPT have their niche appeal, Copilot remains the dominant choice for SSW developers. It’s not just about being a helpful assistant anymore; it’s about transforming the way we approach coding itself.

In 2022, I wondered whether GitHub Copilot would reshape enterprise development. Now, it’s clear it has. The real question is, how much further can it go? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: the AI-driven development revolution is here, and it’s only just beginning.

I’m keen to hear your experience with Copilot, what it’s the strongest at, and what should Microsoft should improve. Let me know in the comments.