GitHub Copilot vs Microsoft Copilot: Key Differences

Digital assistants have evolved from Microsoft’s Clippy to autonomous AI agents, but their goal has stayed the same: to help users increase their productivity. Although there’s no animated mascot in the corner of your screen anymore, AI productivity tools now help people do everything from write content and summarize documents to brainstorm ideas and code up new app features.

Microsoft now develops Copilots, AI-based chat assistants that rely on generative AI to automate office workflows, provide specialized functions for specific use cases, and provide project feedback. The first offering, GitHub Copilot, launched in 2021 as a specialized tool for developers. The company then released the first Microsoft Copilot application as Bing Chat in 2023.

Over time, Microsoft has grown Copilots into a suite of AI agents that support different use cases. These Copilots, Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and GitHub Copilot currently support 33 million active users. The difference between each Copilot is the feature set and when you’d use them in your everyday workflows. GitHub Copilot is suited strictly for coding, while Microsoft 365 Copilot is for office productivity, and Microsoft Copilot is for queries and personal tasks.

This article evaluates the features of GitHub Copilot vs. Microsoft Copilot, their pricing structures, how they can help you increase your overall productivity, and the main differences between them.

What is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is an AI coding assistant that runs within your integrated development environment (IDE). Its origins started in 2020, when researchers were curious about the potential use of OpenAI’s GPT-3 large language model for code generation. It officially launched for technical preview in 2021. It brought a new kind of tool to developers that the industry hadn’t seen before: one that effectively incorporated AI and also had a low learning curve to implement effectively.

With the current GitHub Copilot, you can now use GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 large language models to provide feedback, generate code snippets, create pull request summaries, and increase your overall code development process. Along with your IDE, it is available via GitHub Mobile, in Windows Terminal Canary, the GitHub CLI, and the GitHub website.

GitHub Copilot: Features and pricing

Designed for developers, GitHub Copilot automates some of the more repetitive coding tasks and makes it easier to generate the code you need and have it work when you want.

Here’s how some of its main features can help you code quicker, spending less time in the weeds troubleshooting:

• Agent mode: This feature allows you to edit code autonomously. The agent will determine what files require changes, suggest code changes and terminal commands, and iterate until the original task is complete. It is ideal for complex tasks with multiple steps, when you’re not sure what steps the task requires, or when the task integrates with external applications.

• Code completion: Copilot will automatically provide auto-complete style suggestions for your code in Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Azure Data Studio, Xcode, Vim/Neovim, and Eclipse. If you’re not sure how you want to finish the code, you can also describe your instructions to Copilot, and it will generate a suggestion.

• Copilot Chat: This built-in interface allows you to ask any code-related questions. These questions can be about the code itself, potential issues, or a connected repository. You can also use it to explain code, generate fixes, or run unit tests.

• Pull-request summaries: When you run a pull request with GitHub, Copilot is able to provide summaries of the pull request content, any affected files, and what you should focus on during your review.

• Admin features for enterprises: Github Copilot Enterprise offers features for team managers to define policy management, access management, view user data, audit logs, and exclude specific files from Copilot review.

There are also extensions and app modernization capabilities. You can build out extensions to query third-party documentation, use a third-party AI model to provide code suggestions, retrieve data, or perform specific actions (such as posting to a message board or updating a document version) in an external system.

For pricing, you can add GitHub Copilot to your toolkit for:

• Free: $0/month

• Pro: $10/month or $100/year per user

• Pro+: $39/month or $390/year per user

What is Microsoft Copilot?

Microsoft Copilot is a chat-based generative AI that lets you ask questions, create images, and generate content for both personal and professional applications. The project became publicly available in February 2023 as Bing Chat and then expanded into Microsoft 365 as a replacement for the recently discontinued virtual assistant Cortana. Built with Microsoft Prometheus and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the product has continued to integrate new features, such as image generation, and support for Microsoft 365 applications.

Microsoft Copilot vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft offers several different Copilots based on use case, desired features and functionality, connected applications, and available customer support. This means you’ll run across Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot, which, despite similar naming, are not the same.

The completely free, consumer-facing version is called Microsoft Copilot. It has a ChatGPT-like interface and can be used for personal queries, prompts, and image generation. It can be used via a web browser or as a desktop application. There is a Copilot Pro version available for a monthly subscription, which allows you to use Copilot with web versions of 365 applications, access research content generation, and get more AI credits to use over the course of the month.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is the version that directly integrates with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint. It also allows you to create and use agents to tailor your experience to organization-specific tasks with company data. This version requires a Microsoft 365 subscription so Copilot can get information from your organization’s documents, emails, presentations, and chats to help formulate responses and find necessary information when prompted.

Microsoft 365 Copilot: Features and pricing

With Microsoft 365 Copilot, you can interact with your organization’s documents and data through a chat interface and use AI capabilities to increase your overall productivity, summarize content, generate Word documents, capture data, and disperse information across your teams.

You can also create role-based agents for sales, service, marketing, and finance. Its features include:

• Copilot Chat: Powered by GPT-4o, this interface provides access to search the web, generate content, create images, and use Copilot Pages for cross-team collaboration. This offering will search across organizational data, documents, emails, meetings, and chats and integrate that information into its responses and content creation.

• Researcher: For more in-depth content, such as a market research report, go-to-market plan, and data analysis summaries, Researcher can help you with complex, in-depth reports based on organizational and web data. It can also be used with the Analyst function, based on OpenAI’s o3-mini model, to run Python and view code in real time, and create reports based on raw data.

• Word: Use Copilot to help edit, create, summarize, and format your documents. It can also help you brainstorm article structures, provide feedback on content inconsistencies, and edit for spelling and grammar.

• Excel: Quickly analyze and visualize your data, generate key insights based on Excel data sets, estimate budget drafts, and produce charts and graphs. It can also help easily generate formulas to complete specific tasks or data filtering that you may require.

• Teams: Suggest action items, summarize key discussion points, reiterate important information in chat logs, and retrieve documents and notes within chats. You can also use Copilot to act as a facilitator in team meetings, automatically taking notes, identifying key goals, and recording decisions made throughout the discussion.

• PowerPoint: Automatically generate presentations, create slide summaries, integrate branding guidelines to create presentations that align with your organization’s image, and rewrite any presentation text.

Pricing for Microsoft Copilot includes:

• Free: $0/month

• Copilot Pro: $20/month per user

Pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot includes:

• Copilot Chat: Free, included in all Microsoft 365 subscriptions

• Microsoft 365 Copilot: $30/month per user.

• Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Basic: $36/month per user.

GitHub Copilot vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot

The biggest overlap between GitHub Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot is that they both use AI to help you increase overall productivity for your business tasks and use the term “Copilot.” However, both options serve different purposes.

Functionality

GitHub Copilot is designed specifically to help developers create, refine, and troubleshoot code. It can provide relevant coding suggestions and feedback, and integrate with other coding environments and third-party repositories so developers can share and update their documentation and code snippets.

Microsoft 365 Copilot, on the other hand, is more designed to help non-IT professionals automate repetitive office tasks, take notes during meetings, create written and presentation content, and find information faster across chats, emails, meeting summaries, and data analysis.

Supported applications

Designed for coding, GitHub Copilot supports and connects with IDEs like Visual Studio Code, the GitHub CLI, and Azure Data Studio to provide code feedback, troubleshoot, refactor, and run unit testing.

Microsoft 365 Copilot connects with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint to simplify office tasks within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

User experience and implementation

You can add GitHub Copilot as a plugin to your IDE and start using it after it is installed. This Copilot is designed to work within the coding environment and will provide in-text suggestions and comments for your code as you continuously work. Because it is designed for developers, you must know how to use a coding environment, incorporate feedback, and use an IDE or CLI.

For enterprise deployment of GitHub Copilot, you’ll need to purchase an enterprise-level subscription and then set up policies, networking, and access controls.

With a Microsoft 365 subscription and Copilot license, this cloud-based AI assistant will automatically integrate into your 365 software and provide pop-up suggestions, in-text edits, and a sidebar where you can interact with Copilot within applications. You’ll be able to immediately implement edits and use AI to improve your overall workflow within the Microsoft 365 suite.

For an enterprise deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot, you’ll need to confirm permissions and available licenses, conduct pilot testing, set up multi-factor authentication, restrict sensitive information access, and then assign the proper licenses.

References

• Building a Personal Coding Assistant in Just 6 Lines of Code

• Taking a Look at the GitHub CLI Tool

• Deploying to DigitalOcean With GitHub Actions

GitHub Copilot vs. Microsoft Copilot FAQS

What’s the main difference between GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is designed to help with coding tasks such as code snippet generation and code review. Microsoft Copilot assists with daily tasks and prompts; It can provide answers, generate content, create images, and connect to Microsoft 365 software.

Can you use both GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot together?

No, you cannot use GitHub and Microsoft Copilot together as an integration. However, you can use GitHub Copilot and Microsoft side-by-side to complete their respective tasks in their supported applications.

Is GitHub Copilot part of Microsoft Copilot?

No. GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are two separate tools.

Which Copilot is better for non-coders?

Microsoft Copilot is better for non-coders as it is designed for everyday tasks and questions, and has the Microsoft 365 version that integrates with Microsoft Office tasks. It does not require any coding experience to use or get replies.

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