Everything you need to know about GitLab Duo Enterprise

GitLab Duo Enterprise is now generally available, giving users AI tools across every stage of software creation, which the company says will help users develop secure software faster. 

While the updates to the DevSecOps platform include code generation and code completion, including an autocomplete tool based on context, the aim is to give software engineers AI tools to aid the rest of the work, too.

GitLab research suggests developers spend less than a quarter of their work day actually coding, and the rest understanding or improving existing code, testing, and more.

Because of that, GitLab Duo Enterprise also includes tools such as a chatbot assistant, flaw spotting and resolution, root cause analysis, summarization and templating tools, as well a dashboard to track the impact of AI.

“Organizations want AI that goes beyond code creation to ship secure software faster and deliver more value to their customers,” said David DeSanto, chief product officer at GitLab. “GitLab Duo Enterprise provides an end-to-end solution that embeds AI across the entire software development lifecycle.”

What to expect with GitLab Duo Enterprise

GitLab Duo Enterprise includes all the capabilities of GitLab Duo Pro, but adds tools specific to larger enterprises to help boost workflow efficiency, spot vulnerabilities and more. 

GitLab Duo Pro and GitLab Duo Enterprise both include GitLab Duo Chat, a natural language assistant designed to help with daily tasks for engineering and non-engineering users, the company says. 

For example, users can ask the chat bot to explain a piece of code, ask questions about terminology and even test code to ensure it works as expected.

Both Pro and Enterprise editions also include AI-powered code generation and completion — it’s essentially context-aware autocomplete for code.

The Enterprise edition has additional features beyond Pro, however. That includes root cause analysis, which looks at logs to help resolve bottlenecks in continuous integration and continuous delivery, in which changes are made at the same time to a set of code.

It also includes summarization and templating tools to manage discussions, merge requests and reviews, as well as an AI impact dashboard to see how the AI features impact the software development lifecycle, GitLab says.

On the security front, GitLab Duo Enterprise features a vulnerability explanation system to help developers and security staff spot potential flaws and see how they could be exploited, as well as a resolution tool to help fix them with automatically generated merge requests.

How to get it

GitLab Duo Enterprise is now generally available as an add-on to customers — but not those using the platform for free or those on the Premium subscription. 

Instead, as the name may suggest, the updates are an add-on for enterprise customers on the Ultimate package, and will cost an additional $39 monthly per user.

DeSanto took the general availability announcement to stress GitLab’s commitment to secure code “while prioritizing data privacy and protecting intellectual property”.

That could be referencing the woes of rival GitHub, which was sued for software piracy over its integration of Microsoft Copilot in its programming assistant. GitLab notes on its website that its customers’ code and data aren’t used to train AI models.