Back in July, Microsoft-owned code and developer site GitHub announced the public beta of GitHub Copilot Chat. However, this beta was initially limited to companies and enterprise organizations.

GitHub announced today That the generative AI service is finally available to individual users. Access to the public beta is free.

In today’s blog post, GitHub stated:

Now, teams of developers and individuals alike can use GitHub Copilot Chat to learn new languages ​​or frameworks, solve bugs, or get coding questions answered in simple natural language outputs—all without leaving the IDE. By reducing the need for context switching, it streamlines the development process, helping developers maintain their focus and momentum.

Some of the features that developers can try with GitHub Copilot Chat include real-time code analysis and snippet explanations. The chatbot can also offer some simple troubleshooting solutions, and it can also offer coders ways to fix security issues in their projects.

GitHub Copilot Chat is currently supported in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code editors. Members who are not currently part of GitHub’s beta programs can get information on how to sign up and get started on this support page.

Like its parent company Microsoft, GitHub is doing everything to offer generative AI Copilot services to its developers and companies. First launched in June 2022, GitHub Copilot uses generative AI to help developers generate lines of code for their projects.

In February 2023, GitHub Copilot for Business was launched, offering features that regular GitHub Copilot did not, including simple license management, enterprise-wide policy management, “industry-leading” privacy, and corporate proxy support.

In March, GitHub launched Copilot X, which used OpenAI’s GPT-4 to add chatbot-based artificial intelligence to help developers with their coding. It will be interesting to see how GitHub continues to expand its AI features.