GitHub Copilot reaches 20 million all-time users as enterprise adoption surges and competition intensifies

GitHub Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered coding assistant, has surpassed 20 million all-time users, according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who shared the milestone during the company’s earnings call. A GitHub spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the figure represents cumulative users since the tool’s launch, not active monthly or daily users. This marks a significant increase from the 15 million users reported in April, indicating that more than five million new users have tried the tool in the past three months. While Microsoft and GitHub do not disclose active user metrics, the growth reflects strong adoption, particularly among enterprise customers. The company reported that GitHub Copilot is now used by 90% of the Fortune 100, with enterprise adoption rising by about 75% compared to the previous quarter. GitHub Copilot has emerged as one of the most commercially successful AI tools, generating more revenue than all of GitHub was worth at the time of Microsoft’s 2018 acquisition. Its growth trajectory remains strong, with Nadella highlighting momentum around AI coding agents—tools that autonomously review code, detect bugs, and automate development workflows. Despite the dominance of general-purpose AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, which attract hundreds of millions of monthly users, AI coding tools serve a more specialized market. However, developers and organizations are increasingly willing to pay for tools that boost productivity and reduce errors. With Microsoft’s vast enterprise network and GitHub’s deep integration into developer ecosystems, GitHub Copilot is well-positioned to lead in the enterprise AI coding space. Competition is intensifying. Cursor, another AI-first code editor, has rapidly gained traction, reportedly reaching over a million daily active users in March. Bloomberg reported the company’s annualized recurring revenue (ARR) at $200 million at that time; today, Cursor’s ARR exceeds $500 million, signaling substantial user growth. Though initially targeting different parts of the developer workflow, GitHub Copilot and Cursor are converging into similar platforms. Both now offer AI agents capable of reviewing code, identifying issues, and automating entire development tasks. GitHub’s AI agents are seeing strong momentum, according to Nadella. Beyond Cursor, GitHub faces competition from major tech players. Google has acquired key talent from Windsurf, an AI coding startup, and is expanding its own AI development tools. Cognition, the company behind Devin, has also acquired the remaining Windsurf team. Meanwhile, OpenAI and Anthropic are building their own AI coding assistants—Codex and Claude Code—leveraging their advanced language models to capture market share. As the AI coding space matures, it’s becoming one of the most fiercely contested areas in artificial intelligence, with enterprise adoption, innovation, and revenue growth driving the race forward.