Dive Brief:
- Microsoft is adding autonomous and semi-autonomous AI agents to GitHub Copilot, letting developers automate more aspects of software development, the company said Monday during its annual Build conference.
- Developers will be able to task agents with refactoring code, improving test coverage, fixing defects, implementing new features and modernizing apps, among other duties, as part of the GitHub Copilot coding agent, according to Microsoft. A site reliability engineering agent will also help cloud developers reduce operational costs and improve app uptime by automatically responding to production alerts, autonomously mitigating issues and determining root cause analysis.
- The capabilities “go far beyond autocomplete,” marking a new era of the tool, the company said. Most of the agentic capabilities are currently in preview or will be in the coming weeks.
Dive Insight:
Microsoft, like most major technology providers, is doubling down on agentic AI. The industry’s latest buzzword comes at a time when businesses are prioritizing cost savings and productivity boosts amid economic uncertainty.
Businesses jumped headfirst into generative AI experimentation, though most have been unable to move projects further due to half-baked adoption strategies and a battery of technical gaps and organizational concerns. Analysts have warned CIOs against pushing implementation forward without the right foundation, especially as enterprises eye agentic services and tools.
Despite the hurdles, businesses remain bullish on AI and are willing to shake up their status quo to turn ambitions into reality. Nearly half of enterprise technology buyers have switched software providers lured by better AI features, according to a G2 survey published last week.
Microsoft’s latest round of updates and new features target key enterprise adoption challenges and build on previous announcements. Earlier this month, Microsoft committed to Google’s interoperability protocol for AI agents, joining more than 50 other tech companies in supporting the standard.
The tech giant this week unveiled more ways for enterprises to develop, secure and enhance agents and Copilot, such as expanding its low-code capabilities to support multiagent systems.
In its Q3 2025 earnings report, Microsoft executives said more than 10,000 organizations have already used its agent services, just four months into the new focus area. Microsoft-owned GitHub has also benefited from the recent waves of AI enthusiasm, with more than 15 million GitHub Copilot users, up fourfold year over year.
