GitHub backs down, kills Copilot PR ‘tips’ after backlash

GitHub reversed course after developers discovered that GitHub Copilot was injecting promotional 'tips' — effectively ads for third-party apps like Raycast — into pull requests it was mentioned in, even those created by other users. Australian developer Zach Manson first flagged the behavior after a coworker invoked Copilot to fix a typo in his PR, only to find an unsolicited Raycast advertisement added to it. Over 11,400 PRs were found with similar insertions. GitHub's principal product manager acknowledged it was 'the wrong judgement call' to allow Copilot to modify PRs it didn't create, and the feature was promptly disabled. GitHub later clarified it does not plan to include advertisements and attributed the issue to a 'programming logic issue.'