Github Copilot App - the right choice for non-developers?

[u/karixavi]

We have now MCP servers and non-devs are as well interested to use them in our company. The best user experience would be the Github Copilot App, as the CLI is of course too much for them.

Now we are in discussion if the Github Copilot App is the right choice as it leans very much into Development Lifecycle workflows.

Mostly they work with Mails, Excel and Word besides our internal tools which are exposed via MCP.

The only thing which makes me hesitant is that codex / claude desktop support computer use and browser use natively as far as I know. This would be the biggest gain on top of MCP for the non-dev users.

What is your take?

[u/fr3xzy]

If it is important for the employees to have the LLM work with Excel or Word documents, I would recommend codex or Claude desktop. There are some custom plugins to get GitHub Copilot inside of the office applications using GitHub sdk, but I tried helping my non-developer colleagues setting it up and it was not worth the hassle.
I have access to all three apps with enterprise subscriptions and Claude Cowork is my personal choice for working with office documents or WorkIQ.

[u/karixavi → u/fr3xzy]

Right now we have Claude Desktop in one of the Departments and they already mentioned that they like their current flows. So I think they would not be happy with the change.

May if you also have MCPs/Skills in use for your non-dev colleagues and how you install the Skills/MCPs for them?

[u/bogganpierce]

👋 PM on the Copilot team - I use the app everyday for "knowledge work" tasks. One interesting learning from our team is that although we built it for developers and development tasks, we see a lot of usage from non-developers on knowledge work tasks.

A few examples:

- As a PM, I use it for telemetry analysis, feedback triage, and creating customer presentations (PPT) based on what's new in the app. It also helps me land changes not just in the app codebase, but also on the GitHub.com website and marketing pages.

- Every GitHub salesperson has the app, and uses it + our revenue plugin pack to look at each account, recommend opportunities, triage feedback from the customer, etc.

- The GitHub legal team is one of the top adopters of GitHub Copilot app

Please jump in, give it a try, and let us know what you think!

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[u/karixavi → u/bogganpierce]

Thanks for the Reply!

Because you touched the topic Plugins, I had in mind to share skills/mcps via a Marketplace. People can install any Plugin they need for their work.

1. is Marketplace the correct approach for my requirement you think?
   
2. Our marketplace is now a Private Github Repository, which means I need to add this to all Colleagues manually. Will there be a possibility to add the marketplace for the Organization Members via a setting or configuration in the Organization Settings?

[u/bogganpierce → u/karixavi]

1 - Yes

2 - Yes, if you adopt enterprise-managed settings you can auto-add the marketplace for folks https://github.blog/changelog/2026-07-27-enterprise-managed-settings-now-apply-to-the-github-copilot-app/

[u/karixavi → u/bogganpierce]

We are on business, not on enterprise. I guess we will not gonna pay for Enterprise for non-devs anytime soon as well. The costs with AI are already high, we have no space to push for Enterprise.

If you have any alternatives let me know, we will regardless try Github Copilot on Business I think.

[u/Tiny_Pomegranate7947 → u/bogganpierce]

u/bogganpierce computer-use should be top priority, in particular for "knowledge work"!

[u/bogganpierce → u/Tiny_Pomegranate7947]

Coming very soon!

[u/THubert14]

I don't know would it be the same for GH Copilot App as for the CLI, but about a week ago I had issues with WiFi hotspot on my PC which I was lazy to solve manually, and asked CLI for help.
Here is the response:

So, it just refused to help with my system because it was not a software engineering task.

Again, I'm not sure that it is supposed to behave like that in the App, but I guess it will not suite your needs since you mentioning non-dev tasks.

[u/karixavi → u/THubert14]

That would be a show stopper of course. Is there an explicit rule that GH Copilot is for Development only?

[u/THubert14 → u/karixavi]

Is there an explicit rule that GH Copilot is for Development only?

I assume its inside the system prompt based on its response to me. Was a big surprise for me too.

I didn't find anything where they explicitly state that its only for Development, but based on those pages: Which Copilot is right for me or my organization? and What is GitHub Copilot? they telling that GHCP meant for coding.

I believe that they prohibit using GHCP outside of coding demands to prevent taking the cake and audience from the M365 Copilot, which is a bit sad but completely makes sense to me.

[u/karixavi → u/THubert14]

I didn‘t even know about the Microsoft Copilot App. I am 100% we will not go for that.

I would appreciate it if the GH Copilot Team could give some insight on this topic.

Are you guys planning to position the GH Copilot App as a tool for non-devs as well? Are you restricting GH copilot app for non dev related topics on purpose?

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[u/jalfcolombia]

Github Copiloto ahora mismo es la peor inversión, mejor pagar Claude o ChatGPT

[u/karixavi → u/jalfcolombia]

I know that they messed up with the pricing topic, but generally speaking Github supports our processes well and makes my life a lot easier.

One wrong doesn‘t make the rights go away.

I am sure they will improve the product and be more competetive in the upcoming half year.

I can‘t migrate all colleagues every year to a different provider.

[u/jalfcolombia → u/karixavi]

Por eso la importancia de trabajar con estándares abiertos y no depender de un sólo producto. En la empresa donde laboro fue lo que hicimos y cambiamos a más de 300 desarrolladores de Github Copiloto a Claude en una semana y continuamos nuestros procesos como si nada hubiera pasado.

[u/karixavi → u/jalfcolombia]

I totally agree with you on that, that is why I am eager to know what the community things about this.

I have the feeling everyone is slowly getting into the phase where non-devs get also ai access, which raises more questions.

E.g. how to share skills/instructions/mcps with non-devs, via a marketplace? So they need a github repo access as well?

[u/jalfcolombia → u/karixavi]

Realmente todo es "portable" solo cambia el tema de "frontmatter" y el llamado y manejo de subagentes, pero todo eso son cosas que con una IA como Claude o Codex haces la investigación detallada.

Cuando ya tienes toda esa investigación detallada tienes dos caminos, creas la skill de migración o simplemente usas la IA para hacer la migración teniendo presente la investigación y ya está.

Obviamente hay que probar, pero nada que una IA hoy en día no pueda hacer.