GitHub’s annual Octoverse report shows how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world of software development, fueling the growth of the global developer community and changing the technology landscape. Contrary to fears that AI will replace programmers, the report showed the opposite – developers are actively using AI to create new models and integrate them into applications, while simultaneously participating in a large number of projects on GitHub.
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As of 2024, Python has overtaken JavaScript for the first time to become the most popular programming language on GitHub. This growth, as indicated in the report, is associated with the active development of data science and machine learning (ML), which is also confirmed by the increase in the use of interactive notebooks Jupyter Notebooks. These changes globally reflect a shift in the industry, where there is an increasing emphasis on the use of artificial intelligence, including the creation of lighter models that require less computing resources.
GitHub is seeing a significant increase in the number of developers around the world. 2023 saw a surge in interest in public projects, thanks in large part to AI-enabled tools like GitHub Copilot. The number of developers then reached 100 million. In 2024, they have already contributed to more than 518 million projects, including open-source versions, public and private projects.
Currently, GitHub has seen a 59% increase in the number of contributions to projects related to generative AI and a 98% increase in the number of projects in general. Programmers from India, Germany, Japan and Singapore are working especially actively in this direction, which once again emphasizes the large-scale nature of interest in artificial intelligence outside the United States. Moreover, India is expected to become the country with the largest number of developers on the platform by 2028.
The report also found that among the 20 countries with the largest number of developers on GitHub, the numbers remained stable, but some changes were noticeable. For example, the Philippines overtook Australia to 18th place, while Pakistan moved up to 20th place, overtaking Poland.