Code review is essential, but it can also become a bottleneck as development teams move faster and codebases grow. AI has already changed how developers write code. Now, it’s moving into another part of the development lifecycle: code review. GitHub Copilot Code Review in Azure Repos is now in public preview, giving Azure DevOps teams the ability to use AI to review pull requests before they reach human reviewers.
Making Human Review More Valuable
AI review does not replace human review. Instead, it can change what human reviewers spend their time doing. Copilot can provide an initial pass on a pull request, identifying potential issues and giving developers feedback earlier in the process. That means developers can address straightforward problems before a pull request reaches a human reviewer.
Rather than catching every small issue themselves, senior engineers can focus on architecture, business logic, security, and other decisions that require organizational context. The result is a review process where AI handles more of the repetitive feedback loop while people remain responsible for the decisions that require judgment.
Organizational Standards
Microsoft is also giving organizations ways to make AI reviews more relevant to their own engineering practices. Custom instructions can be configured at the organization, project, repository, or repository-path level, allowing teams to incorporate standards around security, testing, and coding practices into the review process. For enterprise teams, that’s more important than simply adding another AI tool to the developer toolbox. It creates a way to apply certain engineering expectations more consistently across projects and teams.
Organizations can also track Copilot Code Review usage through Microsoft Cost Management, including project-level cost attribution and budget alerts. This makes it possible to introduce the capability selectively while keeping visibility into its adoption and cost.
AI-assisted code review is still evolving. It’s moving beyond generating code and into the systems organizations use to evaluate and govern it. For more information, or to get started, contact our team of experts here at PRAKTIK.