GitHub Halts Copilot 'Tips' in Pull Requests After Thousands of Ad-Like Inserts

Overview

• Microsoft, in a Tuesday statement, said the pull‑request inserts were caused by a programming logic bug and that GitHub will not run ads.
• GitHub disabled Copilot tips in any pull request the agent created or touched after Monday’s developer backlash and internal review.
• Developers traced the same Copilot-written product tip, which mentions Raycast, in more than 11,000 pull requests across the platform, and Raycast denied any ad deal.
• GitHub leaders acknowledged that a recent change letting Copilot act on any PR when mentioned was a bad call because it allowed edits to human-written descriptions without clear consent.
• The incident heightened worries about agent permissions, clearer notices and controls in code review, and AI-generated text seeding codebases that may later train models.