You Can Now Build AI Agents in Kannada, Says GitHub Chief Thomas Dohmke

Microsoft announced the removal of the waitlist for GitHub Copilot Workspace, an AI-assisted coding environment. “There is no more waitlist for GitHub Copilot Workspace – the most advanced agentic editor. Start building with agents today,” CEO Satya Nadella said.

At the Microsoft AI Tour in Bengaluru, Karan MV, director of international developer relations at GitHub, demonstrated that Copilot’s Workspace can understand Indian languages, including Hindi and Kannada, while writing code. 

GitHub chief Thomas Dohmke explained how Copilot Workspace will change software development in local languages. “As always, Karan MV demonstrated the power of Copilot Workspace – building with agents in Kannada. This is the way. Every developer will conduct a symphony of AI agents in natural language,” he said.

As always, @mvkaran demonstrated the power of Copilot Workspace — building with agents in Kannada. This is the way: every developer will conduct a symphony of AI agents in natural language. https://t.co/gAxQy9TzQ2

— Thomas Dohmke (@ashtom) January 13, 2025

The feature was introduced in May last year. “Think about this – every person can now start programming, whether it’s in Hindi, Brazilian, or Portuguese, and bring back the joy of coding in their native language,” Nadella said.

GitHub recently announced that 17 million Indian developers use the platform, second only to the United States. However, in 2021, it was reported that a whopping 67% of engineers graduating from Indian colleges do not possess the necessary English-speaking skills. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft just announced its largest investment in India yet – a $3 billion commitment to expand Azure’s infrastructure in the country. The company also revealed that it will train 10 million people in AI by 2030 as a part of its ADVANTA(I)GE INDIA initiative. 

GitHub Copilot Workspace, launched in April 2024 as a technical preview, is a new tool that helps developers brainstorm, plan, build, test, and run code using natural language. It helps developers work faster by allowing them to interact with AI using natural language. The tool captures user intent and proposes plans of action, facilitating a collaborative coding environment where multiple developers can work simultaneously on tasks.

The platform integrates seamlessly with GitHub and enables users to open issues and generate solutions directly within the workspace. During the tenth edition of its flagship developer conference, GitHub Universe 24, the company introduced several new feature additions to the GitHub Copilot Workspace that help developers use natural language to generate a structured plan based on the specifications of an issue and seamlessly create a pull request. 

Copilot Workspace also leverages generative AI capabilities to assist in coding, allowing teams to iterate on their code effectively and make changes across all the files in a repository.