AI Coding Assistants Encroach on Copilot’s Special GitHub Relationship — Visual Studio Magazine

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AI Coding Assistants Encroach on Copilot’s Special GitHub Relationship

Microsoft had a great thing going when it had GitHub Copilot all to itself in Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code thanks to its ownership of GitHub, but that’s eroding. That relationship resulted in a natural fit for AI-powered extensions that tightly integrate with the GitHub software development platform, but it’s no longer the exclusive province of Copilot.

Soon came the specialized AI-powered coding assistants, which now number in the dozens, and even general-purpose systems backed by large foundational models are encroaching on the former monopoly.

For example, the site TestingCatalog yesterday reported, “GitHub integration and Veo 2 update expected soon for Gemini users.”

“Google keeps working on new features for Gemini, and recently it has been discovered that Gemini will also get integration with GitHub,” the unsourced article said. “In addition to the already existing feature called Code Folder — where users can upload the content of a local folder to Gemini — it will soon be possible to connect a GitHub account and select a specific repository for Gemini to work with.” It shows a screenshot of a tool called “Google Integrations” that says it was developed by Google, with a description reading: “This app allows you to import selected GitHub repositories into Gemini prompts for code analysis.”

While we can’t find any information about that tool, Google’s overview of its Gemini Code Assist tool notes that it provides “Customized code suggestions from your code bases in GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket in your IDE.” Even that falls short of Microsoft’s full Copilot functionality, however, as Google doesn’t provide an extension for Visual Studio 2022, only VS Code, JetBrains IDEs and some cloud options.

The article noted that another foundational model, Claude from Anthropic, already sports GitHub integration.

In fact, when Anthropic announced Claude 3.7 Sonnet in February, it touted GitHub integration in its new agentic coding tool that debuted at the time in a limited research preview: “Claude Code is an active collaborator that can search and read code, edit files, write and run tests, commit and push code to GitHub, and use command line tools — keeping you in the loop at every step.”

However, Claude Code doesn’t come in tools for Visual Studio 2022 or VS Code or any other editor, as Anthropic has focused on API access and the online Claude.ai system. So Claude Code is used via a command-line interface (CLI).

“Claude Code is an agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal, understands your codebase, and helps you code faster through natural language commands,” its documentation says. “By integrating directly with your development environment, Claude Code streamlines your workflow without requiring additional servers or complex setup.”

While there’s no reason developers working in, say, VS Code, couldn’t access Claude AI from the built-in terminal, it probably wouldn’t be the same experience as provided by a bespoke extension.

Also, GitHub last year opened up Copilot to use other models including the two discussed here (see “Bringing developer choice to Copilot with Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s o1-preview”).

But that’s still not the same experience that Microsoft provides with its combination of free AI coding tools for two free editors with super-tight GitHub integration — yet.

Here’s how things stack up for now among some major AI coding assistants, though changes are surely coming.

AI Assistant
Visual Studio IDE
Visual Studio Code
Notes

GitHub Copilot
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
Official extensions for both. Copilot Chat in preview for Visual Studio IDE.

Amazon CodeWhisperer
❌ No
✅ Yes
Supports VS Code, JetBrains, and AWS Cloud9. No Visual Studio IDE support.

Tabnine
✅ Yes (partial)
✅ Yes
VS Code fully supported. Visual Studio IDE support exists but is more limited.

Sourcegraph Cody
❌ No
✅ Yes
Works in VS Code, JetBrains, and browser. No Visual Studio IDE support.

Amazon CodeGuru
❌ No
❌ No
Operates via GitHub pull requests and GitHub Actions. No IDE integration.

Google Gemini
❌ No
✅ Yes (Preview)
Gemini Code Assist available as a VS Code extension. No Visual Studio IDE plugin.

Anthropic Claude
❌ No
❌ No
GitHub integration exists in Claude web app only. No local editor support.

Sourcery
❌ No
✅ Yes
Supports VS Code and JetBrains. No support for Visual Studio IDE.

OpenAI GPT (via Actions)
❌ No
❌ No
Used via GitHub Actions or scripts. Not an editor plugin.