India has emerged as GitHub’s fastest-growing market for its AI coding assistant Copilot, outpacing adoption in other geographies as enterprises accelerate the use of artificial intelligence in software development, Sharryn Napier, vice president for Asia Pacific, told Fe in an interaction.
“We saw Copilot grow faster here than any other GEO,” Napier said, pointing to rapid uptake by large IT services firms looking to improve the speed and quality of software delivery for global clients.
GitHub, acquired by Microsoft in 2018, has in recent years repositioned itself from being primarily a code-hosting repository to a broader AI-led developer platform. The launch of Copilot in 2021 marked its first major push into AI-powered tools, at a time when competition in the coding assistant space has since intensified with the emergence of several startup-led offerings.
From Code Hosting to AI Hub
Napier said competition from newer AI vibe coding tools was not a concern. “Competition is always welcome. It keeps people innovating,” she said, adding that GitHub’s strategy has focused on giving developers greater choice rather than enforcing a single way of working.
That approach was reinforced in October last year, when GitHub opened its platform to custom and third-party agents through Agent HQ, partnering with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI. “We are not of the opinion that we tell developers how to do things,” Napier said. “It gives the developer control, allows them to manage and direct the agents and what they are doing, regardless of what agent it is.”
Scaling to 50 Million
India is now GitHub’s second-largest developer base globally. Of the platform’s 180 million developers, close to 22 million are in India, with more than 5.2 million accounts added in the country last year alone. Napier said the number could rise to around 50 million by 2030 as agentic AI adoption increases. Copilot currently has about 26 million users worldwide.
GitHub has also strengthened enterprise partnerships in India, working with IT majors such as Infosys and Wipro, both of which have set up centres of excellence with the platform. “They understand the value of the platform not just as a coding tool that hangs off the ecosystem,” Napier said.
She said India was the first market where GitHub saw AI adoption scaling at a markedly different speed, driven largely by IT services companies. “The adoption was driven by IT giants and their desire to improve the way they deliver software and software products and services to their customers in that global landscape,” she said.
GitHub last week announced a Copilot software development kit, opening up the tool’s capabilities to developers as a platform. “It allows them to build on top of the engine rather than just using the capability itself,” Napier said, adding that the move would support more complex agentic workflows.