Putting GitHub more directly under its AI umbrella makes some degree of sense for Microsoft, given how hard it has pushed tools like GitHub Copilot, an AI-assisted coding tool. Microsoft has continually iterated on GitHub Copilot since introducing it in late 2021, adding support for multiple language models and “agents” that attempt to accomplish plain-language requests in the background as you work on other things.
But there have been problems, too. Copilot inadvertently exposed the private code repositories of a few major companies earlier this year. And a recent Stack Overflow survey showed that trust in AI-assisted coding tools’ accuracy may be declining even as usage has gone up, citing the extra troubleshooting and debugging work caused by “solutions that are almost right, but not quite.”
It’s not clear whether Dohmke’s departure and the elimination of the CEO position will actually change much, in terms of the way GitHub operates or the products it creates and maintains. As GitHub’s CEO, Dohmke was already reporting to Julia Liuson, president of the company’s developer division, and Liuson reported to Core AI group leader Jay Parikh. The CoreAI group itself is only a few months old—it was first announced by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in January of this year, and “build[ing] out GitHub Copilot” was already one of the group’s responsibilities.
“Ultimately, we must remember that our internal organizational boundaries are meaningless to both our customers and to our competitors,” wrote Nadella when he announced the formation of the CoreAI group.