https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/30/github_copilot_ads_pull_requests/ My Account The Register Home Page [the_regist] [the_regist] Search [magnifying] [close] Search The Register [ ] [magnifying] Navigation [burger_men] [close] Topics Security * All Security * Cyber-crime * Patches * Research * CSO Off-Prem * All Off-Prem * Edge + IoT * Channel * PaaS + IaaS * SaaS On-Prem * All On-Prem * Systems * Storage * Networks * HPC * Personal Tech * Cx0 * Public Sector Software * All Software * AI + ML * Applications * Databases * DevOps * OSes * Virtualization Offbeat * All Offbeat * Columnists * Science * Geek's Guide * BOFH * Legal * Bootnotes * Site News * About Us More from The Register Special Features * All Special Features * RSA * Agentic AI * The Future of the Datacenter * AWS:Reinvent * SC25 * Supercomputing Month * Datacenter Networking Nexus * The State of Storage Vendor Voice * All Vendor Voice * Everpure * Rubrik * Make it real with Capgemini and AWS * Money Movement Hub * ZTE * Scale Kubernetes. Not Chaos. * AWS New Horizon Resources * Whitepapers * Webinars & Events * Newsletters [aiml] AI + ML 41 comment bubble on white GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash 41 comment bubble on white Letting Copilot alter others' PRs was the wrong judgment call, says product manager icon Brandon Vigliarolo Mon 30 Mar 2026 // 20:47 UTC # Updated Microsoft has done a 180. Following backlash from developers, GitHub has removed Copilot's ability to stick ads - what it calls "tips" - into any pull request that invokes its name. Australian developer Zach Manson noted on Monday that, after a coworker asked Copilot to correct a typo in one of his pull requests, he was surprised to find a message from Copilot in the PR pushing readers to adopt productivity app Raycast. "Quickly spin up Copilot coding agents from anywhere on your macOS or Windows machine with Raycast," the note read with a lightning bolt emoji and link to install Raycast. [aiml] "Initially I thought there was some kind of training data poisoning or novel prompt injection and the Raycast team was doing some elaborate proof of concept marketing," Manson told The Register in an email. [aiml] [aiml] But no: Take a look around GitHub and you'll see more than 11,400 PRs with the same tip in them, all seemingly added by Copilot. Take a look at the PRs' code itself and search for the block invoking Copilot to add a tip and you'll find plenty more examples of different tips being inserted by Copilot. Manson told us that he's not surprised to see GitHub doing this with an AI model, but he said it's pretty offensive to see the Raycast ad inserted by Copilot into his own PR like he wrote it. [aiml] "I wasn't even aware that the GitHub Copilot Review integration had the ability to edit other users' descriptions and comments," Manson told us. "I can't think of a valid use case for that ability." GitHub backs down It was only Monday morning when Microsoft watchers at Neowin picked up Manson's report that Copilot was injecting what developers saw as ads into PRs, and, by the afternoon, GitHub had decided a recent change to Copilot may have gone a bit too far. GitHub VP of developer relations Martin Woodward explained in a post on X later in the day Monday that Copilot inserting ads into PRs isn't actually new behavior - it's been doing so in the ones it creates for a while. Letting Copilot touch PRs it didn't create, but is mentioned in, on the other hand, is new behavior that hasn't really worked out. "[When] we added the ability to have Copilot work on any PR by mentioning it the behaviour became icky," Woodward said. * New GitHub Copilot limits push AI users to pricier tiers * GitHub hits CTRL-Z, decides it will train its AI with user data after all * Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features * GitHub infuriates students by removing some models from free Copilot plan Tim Rogers, principal product manager for Copilot at GitHub, took to Hacker News on Monday to say that giving Copilot the ability to add "tips" to PRs was intended "to help developers learn new ways to use the agent in their workflow." Hearing feedback from the community following Manson's post and the kerfuffle it generated, Rogers said, has helped him realize that "on reflection," letting Copilot make changes to PRs written by a human without their knowledge "was the wrong judgement call." "We've now disabled these tips in pull requests created by or touched by Copilot, so you won't see this happen again," Rogers added. (r) Updated to add on March 31: Martin Woodward, VP of Developer Relations, GitHub, said in a statement: "GitHub does not and does not plan to include advertisements in GitHub. We identified a programming logic issue with a GitHub Copilot coding agent tip that surfaced in the wrong context within a pull request comment. We have removed agent tips from pull request comments moving forward." Get our Tech Resources # Share More about * AI * Copilot * Developer More like these x More about * AI * Copilot * Developer * GitHub * Microsoft Narrower topics * Active Directory * AIOps * API * Azure * Bing * BSoD * Copilot+ PC * DeepSeek * Excel * Exchange Server * Gemini * Google AI * GPT-3 * GPT-4 * HoloLens * Internet Explorer * Large Language Model * LinkedIn * Machine Learning * MCubed * Microsoft 365 * Microsoft Build * Microsoft Edge * Microsoft Fabric * Microsoft Ignite * Microsoft Office * Microsoft Surface * Microsoft Teams * .NET * Neural Networks * NLP * Office 365 * OS/2 * Outlook * Patch Tuesday * Pluton * Programming Language * Retrieval Augmented Generation * SharePoint * Skype * Software bug * SQL Server * Star Wars * Tensor Processing Unit * TOPS * Visual Studio * Visual Studio Code * Windows * Windows 10 * Windows 11 * Windows 7 * Windows 8 * Windows Server * Windows Server 2003 * Windows Server 2008 * Windows Server 2012 * Windows Server 2013 * Windows Server 2016 * Windows Subsystem for Linux * Windows XP * Xbox * Xbox 360 Broader topics * Bill Gates * Git * OpenAI * Self-driving Car More about # Share 41 comment bubble on white COMMENTS More about * AI * Copilot * Developer More like these x More about * AI * Copilot * Developer * GitHub * Microsoft Narrower topics * Active Directory * AIOps * API * Azure * Bing * BSoD * Copilot+ PC * DeepSeek * Excel * Exchange Server * Gemini * Google AI * GPT-3 * GPT-4 * HoloLens * Internet Explorer * Large Language Model * LinkedIn * Machine Learning * MCubed * Microsoft 365 * Microsoft Build * Microsoft Edge * Microsoft Fabric * Microsoft Ignite * Microsoft Office * Microsoft Surface * Microsoft Teams * .NET * Neural Networks * NLP * Office 365 * OS/2 * Outlook * Patch Tuesday * Pluton * Programming Language * Retrieval Augmented Generation * SharePoint * Skype * Software bug * SQL Server * Star Wars * Tensor Processing Unit * TOPS * Visual Studio * Visual Studio Code * Windows * Windows 10 * Windows 11 * Windows 7 * Windows 8 * Windows Server * Windows Server 2003 * Windows Server 2008 * Windows Server 2012 * Windows Server 2013 * Windows Server 2016 * Windows Subsystem for Linux * Windows XP * Xbox * Xbox 360 Broader topics * Bill Gates * Git * OpenAI * Self-driving Car TIP US OFF Send us news --------------------------------------------------------------------- Other stories you might like Don't open that WhatsApp message, Microsoft warns How to avoid social engineering attacks? Employee training tops the list Research31 Mar 2026 | 6 Gmail celebrates 22 years by finally letting users change their addresses Congratulations, XxXh4xx0r420xXx, you can now use that account in your professional life, too Applications31 Mar 2026 | 3 Iran targets M365 accounts with password-spraying attacks Researchers say some targets correlate with cities hit by Iranian missile strikes Cyber-crime31 Mar 2026 | 3 Resilient, continuously active data - with no compromise When the gap between data generation and action is a strategic liability, it's time for a fix Sponsored Feature [aiml] Oracle cuts jobs across sales, engineering, security Big Red declines comment as reports point to layoffs in the thousands AI + ML31 Mar 2026 | 5 Anthropic goes nude, exposes Claude Code source by accident Oopsy-doodle: Did someone forget to check their build pipeline? AI + ML31 Mar 2026 | 9 Leaked memo suggests Red Hat's chugging the AI Kool-Aid Exclusive Sounds like an excellent time to start honing your Debian skills OSes31 Mar 2026 | 19 UK watchdog targets Microsoft licensing in cloud competition probe CMA to assess whether the company's terms unfairly favor Azure over rival platforms Off-Prem31 Mar 2026 | 2 Starlink sprays debris into orbit following another satellite 'anomaly' No risk to ISS or Artemis, but not ideal for operator peace of mind Science31 Mar 2026 | 27 Mars coughs up another maybe-life clue in the form of nickel compounds Perseverance found the minerals in an ancient river channel, but researchers say geology may still beat biology Science31 Mar 2026 | 7 ServiceNow allegedly says salesman 'overachieved' and is not entitled to comp The 13-year sales vet closed two deals worth $27 million, but ServiceNow has "nullified" his compensation saying he "overachieved" his quota. SaaS31 Mar 2026 | 31 Microsoft reaches for yet another out-of-band patch to deal with latest update issue Weren't these supposed to be 'atypical'? OSes31 Mar 2026 | 10 The Register Home Page [the_regist] Biting the hand that feeds IT About Us * Contact us * Advertise with us * Who we are Our Websites * The Next Platform * DevClass * Blocks and Files Your Privacy * Cookies Policy * Privacy Policy * Ts & Cs Situation Publishing [situation_] [situation_] Copyright. All rights reserved (c) 1998-2026