Microsoft and OpenAI have a new A.I. tool that will give coding suggestions to software developers

Microsoft on Tuesday announced an artificial intelligence system that can recommend code for software developers to use as they write code. Microsoft is looking to simplify the process of programming, the area where the company got its start in 1975. That could keep programmers who already use the company's tools satisfied and also attract new ones. The system, called GitHub Copilot, draws on source code uploaded to code-sharing service GitHub, which Microsoft acquired in 2018, as well as other websites. Microsoft and GitHub developed it with help from OpenAI, an AI research start-up that Microsoft backed in 2019.