GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke has issued a direct and uncompromising message to software developers: adapt to the age of artificial intelligence, or risk becoming irrelevant. In a blog post titled "Developers, Reinvented", Dohmke urged coders to fundamentally change how they view their roles, stating plainly, “Either you embrace AI, or get out of this career.”
Dohmke's statement reflects a growing sentiment within the tech industry that AI is no longer a complementary tool—it is rapidly becoming central to how software is created and maintained. The CEO’s comments follow internal GitHub research and broader industry trends showing a dramatic shift in developer workflows driven by tools like GitHub Copilot and other generative AI platforms.
"AI is on track to write 90 percent of code within the next 2–5 years," Dohmke said in his post. According to GitHub, developers who integrate AI into their daily work are already seeing major benefits. The company conducted interviews with 22 software engineers across various organizations who are deeply engaged with AI tools. These developers described AI as not just a way to write code faster but a means to rethink the entire process of software creation. Many reported increased ambition, satisfaction, and even a renewed sense of purpose in their work.
Dohmke emphasized that the traditional image of a developer—someone who manually types out code all day—is quickly becoming outdated. Instead, modern developers are expected to act as architects, strategists, and reviewers who collaborate with AI to solve problems, structure applications, and maintain code quality. “In the next two to five years,” Dohmke noted, “developers expect AI to write 80 to 90 percent of their code.”
This shift, he argued, isn’t just a matter of convenience or productivity—it’s about survival in a rapidly evolving tech landscape. Developers who fail to learn how to direct, audit, and refine AI-generated code risk being left behind.
Not everyone has welcomed Dohmke’s stark framing. Some developers have criticized his message as overly corporate or self-serving, especially given GitHub’s own vested interest in AI tools like Copilot. Others have expressed concern about job security, skill devaluation, and the ethical implications of delegating creative work to machines.
Still, for many in the software community, the writing is on the wall. AI is no longer an emerging trend—it’s the new foundation of development. Dohmke’s message may be blunt, but it reflects a reality that countless developers are already experiencing: the future of coding belongs to those who can work with AI, not against it
