GitHub Copilot Rival Gets Google Cloud Backing

Google Cloud is partnering with a GitHub Copilot rival to gain access to its collaborative code-editing platform.

The partnership calls for Replit to offer access to Ghostwriter while Google Cloud will provide access to its AI infrastructure and foundation models.

The 20 million developers using Replit’s SaaS coding platform can now use Google Cloud tools, such as Vertex, Google Cloud’s machine learning virtual testbed, as well as access to its array of AI models, such as PaLM.

Replit offers AI-assisted cloud-native software development with access to pre-fetched package files. Ghostwriter offers AI coding assistance to users, with businesses able to pick up subscriptions. Among users, more than 30% of their code is generated.

The startup’s partnership with Google Cloud follows the recent addition of a conversational AI interface called Ghostwriter Chat for generating code and proactively debugging.

“AI has changed software development forever,” said Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit, in a blog.

Generative models like OpenAI's ChatGPT can generate code based on text prompts. But their effectiveness has often been questioned, with popular coding Q&A platform Stack Overflow initially banning ChatGPT due to concerns about its reliability.

OpenAI’s recently released GPT-4 is partly powering a revamped GitHub Copilot, allowing users to generate pull requests and other development processes that go along with coding.

Related:GitHub Unveils Copilot X with GPT-4, New Features

Meanwhile, Google’s ChatGPT rival, Bard, said it can write code but is still learning how to make it “more robust and error-free.”