In March, agents started 17% of pull requests on GitHub. By September - over 40%.
Fact
The facts: on 28 October 2026, GitHub published Octoverse 2026 for the year. By GitHub's data, over 40% of pull requests (PRs) on the platform by September 2026 were started by an agent, against 17% in March; in September alone that is 110 million. For the year GitHub reports 17.9 billion pushes, 34.3 billion commits and 1.3 billion merged pull requests, 3.5 million a day on average. Developers on the platform number over 225 million. TypeScript has the most contributors, followed by Python and JavaScript. Of those who pick a model themselves in Copilot, 61% used more than one in September, and 63% of paid users tried auto selection at least once. Most of the numbers cover public and private repositories.
The number is about the start. How many of those pull requests reach a merge is not stated. The 1.3 billion merged are for everyone, not only agent-started ones.
The agent writes the first draft. Who finishes it, the statistics don't say.
There is a figure about the model too. 61% of those who pick a model themselves in Copilot have used more than one, and 63% of paid users have left the choice to auto selection at least once.
If you maintain a repository where agents work, count for one week how many pull requests started with an agent and how many of those were merged. That number isn't in Octoverse.
Official primary sources
GitHub - Octoverse 2026: commits, pushes, reach new highs as developers build with agents, 28.10.2026The visual is generated code-art, no third-party images.