GitHub turns code review into a chat with its new AI ‘CodeLens Review Assistant’

GitHub has started rolling out a new AI feature called CodeLens Review Assistant, aiming to turn traditional code review into a conversational experience. Built on top of GitHub’s existing CodeLens annotations in the editor, the assistant lets developers ask natural language questions like “What is this function supposed to do?” or “Could this introduce a bug?” directly on the relevant line of code and get context‑aware answers and suggestions.

The tool is powered by the same technology stack behind GitHub Copilot and can generate draft review comments by looking at pull‑request diffs, commit history and surrounding code. At launch, it’s available to paying Copilot individual and business customers and is being shipped first as an extension for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio. GitHub says its goal is not only to reduce the time spent on code review but also to help teams give clearer, more actionable feedback, especially for developers who struggle to write precise review comments in English.