Disney is dropping GitHub Copilot for OpenAI's Codex, citing low usage. Eight tech employees said they rarely used the tool. Claude and Cursor remain.
Disney is dropping Microsoft's GitHub Copilot and several other AI coding tools in the US starting in August, according to a screenshot of an internal message reviewed by Business Insider. The changes do not apply internationally, a Disney tech leader told employees.
The breakup adds to Microsoft's Copilot headaches. The tool lags behind rivals like ChatGPT and Claude in adoption, as Business Insider's Ashley Stewart has reported. GitHub Copilot is the coding assistant in Microsoft's AI product suite.
Microsoft's loss is Sam Altman's win. Disney is preparing to adopt OpenAI's Codex coding tool, the message said. No timeline was given for the introduction.
Disney will keep staffers' access to Anthropic's Claude Enterprise and Cursor while dropping two Amazon AI tools: the agentic code editor Kiro and the assistant Q. Claude will also no longer be accessible through Amazon Web Services Bedrock.
Eight Disney tech employees told Business Insider they rarely or never used GitHub Copilot. One product manager said it produced code that was "needlessly complex" and required cleanup. A longtime software engineer said their access had "lapsed for lack of use." Once they got Cursor and Kiro, "there was no need to use it," this staffer said.
Copilot frustrated some users last month when it updated pricing to charge based on AI token usage, an industry-standard model. The company called the request-based model "no longer sustainable" as it announced the shift. A Microsoft executive said in June the change fueled the "best month ever" for GitHub, Business Insider previously reported.
Claude and Cursor have become favorites among Disney tech employees. Some superusers invoke those tools tens of thousands of times per day, Business Insider has reported. One high-level software engineer said their AI tool usage was "probably around 80% Claude at the terminal when coding."
Disney's streaming leaders created an AI adoption dashboard to track usage and have pushed tech employees to work faster. "The No. 1 thing is to increase velocity," a high-level AI staffer said.
Microsoft has been revamping GitHub and shaking up its Copilot teams to help the tools compete with OpenAI and Anthropic. The shift at Disney shows how enterprise AI coding preferences are splitting along tool-specific lines, with developers gravitating toward agents they find more efficient for daily tasks. For Microsoft, losing a high-profile customer like Disney highlights the competitive pressure on its Copilot suite, even as the company reports strong overall GitHub platform growth.
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