Featured image: DANA developers speed up their coding process with GitHub Copilot and Copilot Chat
Jakarta, 24 April 2024 – DANA, a leading Indonesian technology financial company, has collaborated with Microsoft to integrate GitHub Copilot into its daily business operations, to increase developer productivity. Starting February 2024, almost 300 developers from back-end, front-end, quality assurance and site reliability of DANA have incorporated GitHub Copilot into their daily workflows, enabling them to write code faster, and focus more energy on problem solving and collaboration. This strategic move illustrates a seamless alignment between DANA’s mission to drive financial literacy and inclusion, with Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization to achieve more.
DANA’s journey since its establishment in 2018 has been defined by its commitment to the digital payment revolution through innovation and productivity, most recently by enforcing an “AI Everywhere” companywide initiative. With over 180 million users and 900 employees or “DANAM8s”, DANA continues to expand its reach and impact by integrating cutting-edge AI technology into its Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). The advent of AI represents a new era for DANA, where technology is not merely a tool but a transformative force and also an extension of its engineers–60% of their workforce–for problem-solving.
Norman Sasono, Chief Technology Officer of DANA, explains, “AI is not just a tool; it’s a game changer. The democratization of AI enables widespread adoption, as anyone can now optimize this technology to transform existing data and create entirely new solutions. Generative AI, in particular, presents boundless opportunities for DANA to understand customers better, build new solutions, and drive productivity. This is precisely why DANA is keen on accelerating the adoption of AI in our workforce, most recently through the adoption of GitHub Copilot.”
GitHub Copilot is the world’s most widely adopted AI developer tool, with over 1.3 million paid users and more than 50,000 organizations choosing it to increase developer productivity. From real time code suggestions and chat assistance in the integrated development environment (IDE) to breaking down complex coding concepts in natural language, GitHub Copilot empowers developers with AI across the software development lifecycle to increase productivity and boost developer happiness. Developers that use Copilot report up to 75% higher satisfaction with their jobs than those who don’t and are up to 55% more productive.
In DANA, according to Norman, GitHub Copilot has yielded tangible benefits and empowered DANA’s developers and QAs. Over the past two months, DANA’s developers have reported an increasing reduction in coding time, attributing this efficiency gain to the assistance provided by GitHub Copilot and Copilot Chat. Furthermore, approximately 70% of developers have noted an enhanced understanding of both new and legacy code thereby facilitating a smoother development process. Developers also appreciated the valuable insights offered to achieve objectives and the streamlined creation of unit tests for final products.
Additionally, GitHub Copilot makes it easier for DANA’s new developer talent to get up to speed with the fundamentals, helping to train their skills and provide the context needed as part of their development. For example, Copilot Chat—a cornerstone of the GitHub Copilot experience—enables developers to ask for help with their code in natural language. For DANA’s more experienced developers, GitHub Copilot enables them to spend less effort on mundane tasks and boilerplate code, so they can focus on problem solving and collaboration.
Tasya L. Diandraputri, one of the many female software engineers building their career in DANA, attests to Copilot’s impact, stating, “GitHub Copilot has revolutionized our coding experience. Its intuitive suggestions and efficient workflow have propelled our projects forward”. Fulki Firosyan, who finds himself among the senior members of DANA’s development team, echoes similar sentiments, emphasizing Copilot’s ability to save time and improve collaboration within his team.
“The impact of GitHub Copilot across the board has been astounding, with developers writing code up to 55% faster. When Copilot is rolled out organization-wide, productivity is turbocharged and this means organizations can deliver high-quality products to the market, faster,” says Ross Fenton, Senior Director, Corporate, APAC at GitHub. “We’re thrilled to see companies like DANA leveraging GitHub Copilot to enhance their productivity and foster a culture of learning and innovation. Their fantastic results are a testament to the potential of AI-powered software development. We look forward to DANA’s continued use of AI to boost the efficiency of their tech team, aiding in the advancement of financial inclusion, digitalization for MSMEs, and strengthening connections across Asia, particularly for Indonesia,” added Fenton.
Looking ahead, DANA is poised to further leverage AI to drive innovation. Plans to transition to GitHub Copilot Enterprise, which culminates the entirety of GitHub’s Copilot offerings and personalizes them with the context of an organization’s codebase—dramatically multiplying productivity gains, underscore the company’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements. “With more accessibility, each team will have more capability to reinforce their work,” continued Norman. “A deeper understanding of the AI DANA is using to DANA’s own private unique code base is necessary for more accurate code prediction. Hence, the tech team can carry out faster workflows.”
In addition to GitHub Copilot, DANA has embraced several Microsoft AI solutions such as Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service as part of its “AI Everywhere” companywide initiative, which has further enhanced the company’s operations, workforce productivity, and customer service.
Fiki Setiyono, Azure Go to Market Lead, Microsoft ASEAN commented, “DANA’s embrace of AI marks a pivotal moment in its evolution, signalling a commitment to harnessing technology for societal transformation. With GitHub Copilot and other Microsoft AI technologies as its allies, we are looking forward to DANA’s journey in redefining the future of digital finance in Indonesia.”
To learn more about DANA’s “AI Everywhere” initiative, join Microsoft’s Build: AI Day Jakarta on April 30, 2024 by registering here. DANA will be sharing more about how Microsoft AI and GitHub Copilot are being integrated into their everyday operations, in addition to showcasing the resulting transformative effects.
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