Microsoft is winding down its use of Anthropic’s Claude Code AI coding assistant, with the company’s Experiences + Devices team slated to stop using the tool by the end of June. The decision, detailed in an internal memo from executive vice president Rajesh Jha, will see most engineers transition to the GitHub Copilot CLI, a command‑line version of the popular Copilot AI pair programmer.
Claude Code was introduced to Microsoft’s workforce in December, initially as a way for designers, project managers and developers to experiment with AI‑assisted coding. Over the past six months the tool gained a strong following, especially among engineers who began favoring it over Copilot CLI. However, Microsoft says the dual‑tool approach created redundancy and left gaps that need to be addressed.
“When we began offering both Copilot CLI and Claude Code, our goal was to learn quickly, benchmark the tools in real engineering workflows, and understand what best supported our teams,” Jha wrote. “Claude Code was an important part of that learning… at the same time, Copilot CLI has given us something especially important: a product we can help shape directly with GitHub for Microsoft’s repos, workflows, security expectations, and engineering needs.”
The June 30 cutoff aligns with the end of Microsoft’s current financial year. Sources say canceling Claude Code licenses provides an easy way to reduce operating expenses as the company prepares for the new fiscal year starting in July. The move also consolidates the company’s AI coding strategy under a single, Microsoft‑controlled product.
Transitioning away from Claude Code will not be seamless. Engineers who have grown accustomed to its features will need to adapt to Copilot CLI, which still has gaps compared with the Anthropic model. Microsoft has considered acquiring the AI‑coding startup Cursor and is exploring other AI firms to bolster its capabilities, but for now it plans to invest heavily in Copilot CLI integration across its own engineering workflows.
Anthropic’s models will remain accessible through Copilot CLI, alongside internal‑only Microsoft models and OpenAI’s suite. The decision does not affect Microsoft’s Foundry partnership with Anthropic, which continues to provide Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Opus 4.1 and Claude Haiku 4.5 to customers. Anthropic’s technology also powers Microsoft 365 Copilot and the upcoming Claude Cowork features.
By consolidating on Copilot CLI, Microsoft hopes to improve the tool’s performance, security, and compatibility with its own repositories. The GitHub team has already shipped significant updates based on internal feedback, and Jha emphasized a shared accountability between GitHub and Microsoft’s Experiences + Devices leadership to deliver “the best agentic coding experience for Microsoft engineers.”
While Claude Code’s internal popularity may have dented the 91 percent GitHub Copilot usage figure Microsoft reported last year, the company expects the renewed focus on Copilot CLI to reverse that trend. Engineers are being encouraged to file bug reports and feedback ahead of the June deadline, ensuring the next‑generation tool meets the needs of Microsoft’s diverse development teams.
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