New agent mode can iterate on its own code, infer tasks not specifed, recognize errors, and fix them automatically, GitHub said.

GitHub Copilot may be the single most useful AI companion I've used, but it's about to get a lot better with agents and other improvements.

Developer platform GitHub has hopped on the AI agent bandwagon. The platform on Friday, announced that it was bringing Agent Mode for GitHub Copilot, its code completion and programming tool. With Agent Mode, the GitHub Copilot gets an AI-powered assistant for coding that can iterate on its own code, recognise errors, and fix them.

Today, we are infusing the power of agentic AI into the GitHub Copilot experience,” said GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke.

Here, too, GitHub Copilot succeeded where Microsoft Copilot failed. The challenge here is that I'm testing the AI's ability to create a script that knows about coding in AppleScript, the Chrome object model, and a little Mac-only third-party coding utility called Keyboard Maestro.

New agent mode can iterate on its own code, infer tasks not specifed, recognize errors, and fix them automatically, GitHub said.