Channel Insider content and product recommendations are
editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links
to our partners.
Learn More
Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub since 2021, just announced he will step down later this year to return to his entrepreneurial roots. His departure comes as Microsoft folds GitHub more closely into its CoreAI division, highlighting the platform’s growing role in the company’s artificial intelligence strategy. Dohmke, who joined Microsoft in 2015 after the company acquired his startup HockeyApp, became GitHub’s CEO following Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of the platform in 2018.
Dohmke will remain on through end of the year while Microsoft transitions organization
In his announcement, Dohmke expressed pride in GitHub’s growth under his leadership.
“With more than 1B repos and forks, and over 150 million developers, GitHub has never been stronger than it is today,” he said. “We have seen more open-source projects with more contributions every year. AI projects have doubled in the last year alone. And our presence in companies of any size is unmatched in the market.”
He plans to stay through the end of 2025 to help see the transition through before leaving to start a new company.
GitHub joins Microsoft’s CoreAI Group
Once Dohmke leaves, Microsoft does not plan to replace him. Instead, GitHub’s leadership will report into Microsoft’s recently formed CoreAI division, led by former Meta engineering chief Jay Parikh. Julia Liuson, head of Microsoft’s Developer Division, will oversee GitHub’s revenue, engineering, and support functions.
CoreAI, which was established in January of this year, focuses on advancing Microsoft’s AI tools and technologies. Bringing GitHub in means it’ll be even more connected to Microsoft’s AI work, with GitHub Copilot becoming a go-to coding assistant for millions of developers.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted last year that GitHub Copilot had grown into a business larger than GitHub itself at the time of acquisition. According to recent reports, Copilot now has over 20 million users, with enterprise customers growing 75% quarter-over-quarter.
Facing growing competition in AI coding
GitHub is solidly at the center of Microsoft’s push into AI-driven software development. The platform offers direct access to millions of developers worldwide, which is hyper-critical for the success of Microsoft’s Azure cloud, Windows, and expanding AI product suite.
But competition is rather fierce. Google, Cursor, Replit, and Windsurf are among the other companies accelerating their development of AI coding tools. Even OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude are throwing their hats into the ring. The rise of “vibe coding,” where programmers create software with just a few words of human input, highlights the fast evolution in this space.
Under Dohmke’s leadership, GitHub launched Copilot in partnership with Microsoft and OpenAI and recently rolled out an AI agent to handle specific coding tasks autonomously. GitHub now generates more than $2 billion in annual revenue, which means it aligns rather nicely with Microsoft’s broader AI goals.
“While I’m certainly proud of our hard-earned business growth, technology built for its own sake means nothing but vanity unless it serves a greater purpose,” said Dohmke. “We only succeed when the world succeeds too.”
GitHub’s next chapter as part of CoreAI will be one to watch, especially as AI-powered coding tools become increasingly crucial to software development worldwide.
The rise of AI coding assistants, such as GitHub Copilot, has inspired the development of new tools that blend AI with secure development. Apiiro’s recent launch of AutoFix AI utilizes runtime context to automatically identify and resolve design and code risks directly within developers’ IDEs, merging AI-powered coding and security. Read more here.
