GitHub Copilot Is Putting Ads in Your Pull Requests. Microsoft Calls Them "Tips."
GitHub Copilot includes ads in your PRs. Microsoft calls them 'tips.'
A developer asked Copilot to fix a typo in a PR. Copilot fixed the typo, then quietly edited the PR description to include a promotion for itself and Raycast.
Not a bug. Not a hallucination. A feature.
11,000 PRs. Same Promotional Text.
Developers got curious. They spotted HTML comments labeled "START COPILOT CODING AGENT TIPS" hidden within thousands of PR descriptions on GitHub.
11,000+ pull requests contained the exact paragraph of promotional text.
The gist of it was: "Quickly spin up Copilot coding agent tasks from anywhere on your macOS or Windows machine with Raycast."
Raycast says they had no idea Copilot was doing this. Microsoft hasn't confirmed whether it's an intentional ad placement or just overzealous "product guidance."
Your PR Description Is Your Space
THE. PR. DESCRIPTION. SPACE.
You own that. You'll wield it to clarify intent, justify the need for a change, challenge a reviewer, or propose a compromise. It's your prime-time slot to negotiate with your teammates.
And now your AI overlord is commandeering that time to shill third-party services.
You're Paying for This
It's not a free service. GitHub charges $10-39 per user per month for Copilot. And the tool you're paying for is rewriting your professional communication to include ads.
→ Imagine a spellchecker that fixes your typo but adds "Brought to you by Grammarly" at the bottom of your document
→ You'd uninstall it immediately
The Enshittification Pattern
The enshittification pattern is textbook. First, the platform works for users. Then it works for business partners. Then it extracts value from both. The original blog post about this literally quoted Cory Doctorow's enshittification essay.
What makes this particularly dangerous is the delivery mechanism. Hidden HTML comments. Most developers won't see them in rendered markdown. They'll only show up if you view the raw source.
It's promotion designed to be invisible to the person whose work it's attached to, but visible to GitHub's indexing and other automated tools.
Where Does the Tool End and the Ad Platform Begin?
AI coding agents are increasingly writing code, opening PRs, and participating in code review. If the agent writing your code is also injecting promotions into your workflow, where does the tool end and the ad platform begin?
As ad content pours in, trust leaks out. Every Copilot suggestion now carries an asterisk. Is this the best code for my problem, or is this the best code for Microsoft's partners?
The 11,000 PRs they found are probably just the ones with obvious promotional text. How many subtler nudges toward specific libraries, tools, or patterns are already baked into Copilot's suggestions?
We might never know.
What's your take — are you still comfortable letting an AI tool edit your PRs after this? 👇
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