Australian developers embrace AI, boost productivity on GitHub

GitHub's 2025 Octoverse report has revealed significant growth within the Australian developer community, underpinned by the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in software development practices.

The latest statistics from GitHub show that over 2 million Australians are now actively developing software on the platform. Over the past year, 367,000 Australians created new accounts, marking a 21.6% rise on the previous year and setting a new record for annual growth within the local community.

Continued growth

Australia has emerged as the 19th largest developer community globally on GitHub, now part of a broader international developer base that exceeds 180 million individuals. The findings highlight that more than 2 million Australian developers are contributing to the platform, with substantial increases in participation year-on-year.

The report indicates that growth is not limited to the number of developers, but also evident in developer output. Over the past twelve months, the GitHub community recorded more than 1.12 billion contributions to public and open source projects, the most active period in the platform's history. Australian developers made over 10.7 million open source contributions in the last year.

Role of artificial intelligence

The increased adoption of AI tools such as GitHub Copilot is notable. Globally, 80% of new developers used Copilot within their first week on the platform. This trend points to AI playing a pivotal role in upskilling and enabling individuals new to software development.

"The story of 2025 isn't AI versus developers - it's about AI transforming how developers work. We're seeing record numbers of projects shipped and meaningful activity this year as AI expands what developers can do and accelerates how fast they can build. More developers moving faster is good news for Australia as we continue to tackle our tech skills shortage and productivity challenges.

AI has already changed the game. Now, agentic AI is the next leap forward - a powerful productivity lever for Australia's digital economy, especially when developers embrace it as a true collaborator, unlocking a new wave of innovation and growth."

These comments from Sharryn Napier, Vice President, APAC, at GitHub, reflect the sentiment that AI is not seen as a competitor, but as an enabler of productivity and innovation within the sector.

Programmeming languages and AI projects

The Octoverse report shows a marked shift in the programming languages preferred by developers. Worldwide, TypeScript has overtaken Python and JavaScript to become the most used language on GitHub during 2025, driven by the requirements of safety, scalability, and AI support in large projects. Contributions to TypeScript increased by over 1 million, a 66% year-on-year growth, aided by frameworks and AI-assisted developments that favour TypeScript by default.

Python, however, continues to be significant in the AI domain, powering about half of all new AI projects on GitHub, with its use in contributions rising by 49% over the past year to reach 2.6 million. In Australia, while JavaScript remains the most popular language due to its accessibility, TypeScript has become more prominent-climbing from 11th to 4th place in usage over five years. This trend indicates that Australian developers are increasingly adopting tools suited for modern AI programming.

AI's influence on open source and security

AI's influence extends to open source development and software security. The report outlines that 60% of the top 10 open source projects on GitHub focus on AI. Australian developers contributed 10.7 million times to open source over the last year. The prevalence of generative AI was also noted, with 4.3 million AI-related repositories created globally in 2025, almost doubling since 2023. Of those, 1.13 million public repositories incorporated Large Language Model (LLM) software development kits, marking a 178% year-on-year increase.

Australia stands as the 17th biggest source of AI-repository contributions worldwide, highlighting the country's strong participation relative to the size of its developer community.

The security aspects of software development have also benefited from AI. The report shows that AI has helped reduce the time to fix critical vulnerabilities by 30%, with fix times dropping from 37 days to 26 days. There has been a 26% decrease in repositories receiving critical alerts year over year, suggesting improvements in the management of software security risks.

Developer productivity

The volume of issues closed on public and private projects also set a record in July 2025, with 5.5 million closures compared to a 3.4 million monthly average in the previous year. This spike underscores the impact of AI and automation in accelerating project completion and collaboration across communities.

The findings from the Octoverse report highlight evolving technology choices, with the adoption of AI and modern programming languages shaping productivity and participation within the Australian and global developer ecosystems.