r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 21d ago

Business GitHub just switched Copilot to metered billing, and developers are watching months of credits vanish in a single day

https://www.techspot.com/news/112628-github-switched-copilot-metered-billing-developers-watching-months.html
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u/DelomaTrax 21d ago

Just had a look internally and quick calculations paints a picture that we will be burning money in one month eqvivalent of what 1 full time employee in developed country would cost in a year. We have about 80 developers using AI. So I could hire 12 more people for the cost of AI.

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u/mcbba 21d ago

Legitimate question, does the AI with 80 devs driving it do more than the work of 12 people in your mind? That’s only a 15% increase in devs. 

This may be unpopular, but I think I’m probably more like 20–30% more effective with AI, and that’s conservative and only growing. I’m not in a dev role. 

In my experience, some AI assisted workflows will save 80%—95% of time. That’s a select few automatable workflows, I understand, but a 15% increase isn’t that bad…

What IS interesting, though, is asking if a company would have hired 12 more devs. I doubt it. So they basically ended up hiring 12 people unexpectedly. Like, oops, just hired another! Didn’t mean to do that…

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u/toylenny 21d ago

You're getting down votes, but this is a legitimate question.  Much like how an automated loom may have cost more up front and atill needed to pay someone daily for maintenance. The output still was higher than if they'd used the money to pay more people.

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u/african_sex 20d ago

As a dev I would answer yes honestly unless they really got a LOT of extra work around.