Working paper 05: Comparison of Amazon Codewhisperer licenses

Working Paper 05 compares Amazon CodeWhisperer licenses. There are two licenses: Individual and Professional. Pricing is available here. At the time of publication, pricing ranges from $0 - $19 per user per month.

The Working Paper is structured as follows:

1. Criteria for evaluating any GenAI coding tool
2. Comparison of GitHub Copilot’s two tiers
3. Recommendations to choose a license‍

‍Sema recommends the Professional license for organizational use. The added features, controls, and IP indemnification are suitable choice for most organizations.‍

1. Criteria for Evaluating Any GenAI Coding Tool

When evaluating GenAI coding tools, engineering leaders should consider:

1. Organization Size and Structure: Key factors include the size of your development team, collaboration requirements, and the overall structure of your organization. ‍
2. Security and Compliance: Ensure appropriate, industry-specific protocols are in place based on your organization’s security requirements and compliance obligations. Consultation with security, legal, and regulatory affairs leadership may be necessary to protect your organization from potential risks and maintain the integrity of your software development process.‍
3. Path to Adoption: Evaluate how well each GenAI coding tool integrates with your existing engineering infrastructure, processes, and workflows.
   Consider the level of customization and flexibility offered to ensure developer adoption of AI-assisted coding tools without friction to your software development lifecycle or changes to established best practices ‍
4. Scalability and Future Growth: Ensure that you’ve accounted for your engineering organization’s long-term goals and growth trajectory.
   Scalability is crucial to accommodate increasing development demands, larger teams, and more complex projects at optimal performance and functionality levels.‍
5. Budget and ROI: Pricing and licensing models of each GenAI coding tool should consider the total cost of ownership and the potential return on investment.
   Benefits include increased productivity, faster time-to-market, and improved code quality, against the associated costs.
   An analysis of budget and ROI helps justify the investment and ensures that you select a GenAI coding tool that delivers the most value for your organization.
   

2A. Amazon CodeWhisperer Individual

Overview

• Provides a range of AI-powered features to streamline the coding process.
• Integrates with popular IDEs for in-context intelligent code suggestions
• Additional features include public code filter, reference tracker, and security vulnerability scans for enhanced security.
• Optimized for use with AWS services, making it more efficient for developers to leverage AWS APIs like Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, and Amazon S3.
  

Productivity and Code Quality

• Provides in-line code suggestions to optimize development workflows, utilizing GenAI to propose improvements and alternatives that enhance code quality and efficiency.
• Includes a reference tracker for open-source code, recommendations for  code maintainability and assistance to developers in understanding relationships and dependencies within the codebase.
• Supports multiple programming languages, including Java, Python, JavaScript, and for TypeScript, C#, AWS CloudFormation (YAML, JSON), AWS CDK (TypeScript, Python), and HashiCorp Terraform (HCL).
• Supports command-line integration, offering developers flexibility in how they use the AI coding and potentially integrating it into scripts and other automated processes.
  

Security and Code Protection

• Prioritizes security and code protection with encryption-in-transit and encryption at rest in order to prevent unauthorized access, leakage, or modifications during transmission and storage.
• Safeguards intellectual property with a public code filter to restrict unauthorized exposure to sensitive code
• Offers built-in security scans and AI-powered code remediation that automatically identifies and fixes potential security vulnerabilities early in the development process.

Ensures GDPR compliance by minimizing the risk of legal repercussions and financial penalties associated with data breaches or misuse.‍

2B. Amazon CodeWhisperer Professional

Overview

• Builds on CodeWhisperer Individual with additional features tailored specifically for organizations that require collaboration capabilities and enterprise functionalities.
• Facilitates teamwork, codebase management, and offers copyright infringement indemnification.
  

Productivity and Workflow Optimization

• Includes feature development and code transformation with Amazon Q, using AI for actionable plans, code changes, and automation of updates, testing, and deployment checks.
• Customizes CodeWhisperer for your organization by integrating internal libraries, APIs, and best practices for relevant recommendations, onboarding, code quality and security.
  

Security and Compliance

• Integrates with AWS IAM Identity Center to simplify user access control through Single Sign-On (SSO) and allowing administrators to enforce organization-wide policies.
• Includes a CodeWhisperer administrator for fine-tuned control over the coding tool, to help ensure that it is used effectively and securely within an organization.
• Simplifies software license administration within an organization through centralized organizational license management, streamlining compliance and facilitating audits.
• Indemnification clause: to protect users using the tool properly against potential copyright infringement claims.
  

3. Recommendation

Sema recommends the Professional tier for all organizational use. The added features and controls are the suitable choice for most organizations. The uncapped IP indemnity for copyright claims in CodeWhisperer Professional is worth it on its own for peace of mind.

For More Information

Relationship to other Working Papers:

• Working Paper 01- High ROI AI Activities. Explains the calculation behind the ROI for coders using GenAI.
• Working Paper 02- Assessing IP Risks of Coders Using GenAI. One of the high ROI activities, Developers using GenAI tools while coding, is only worth the investment if the generated codebase can receive sufficient IP protection. Sema’s research indicates that the IP can indeed be protected, subject to your Counsel’s final determination.
• Working Paper 03- Comparison of tiers of GitHub Copilot GenAI Coding Tools.
• Working Paper 04- Assessing the Total Risk from GenAI Coding Tools. The risks of using GenAI coding tools, not just IP risks are mitigable.
  

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The availability of this publication is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. The views set forth herein are the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Firm.