Cognition to Acquire Windsurf After Google Poaches Founders and Researchers

Artificial intelligence (AI) software engineer provider Cognition is acquiring AI code generation startup Windsurf, the companies said Monday (July 14) in separate blog posts.

These announcements came after Friday’s (July 11) news that Google had successfully recruited several top executives and researchers from Windsurf.

Cognition said in its blog post that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Windsurf, including the company’s intellectual property (IP), product, trademark, brand and people.

The Windsurf team will continue operating in its current manner in the immediate term, and Cognition will integrate the company’s capabilities and IP into its own products over the coming months, according to the post.

The post also shared a note sent to the Cognition team, in which Cognition Co-Founder and CEO Scott Wu said the acquisition will enable Cognition to “move even faster on our mission of building the future of software engineering” with its AI software engineer, Devin.

“As you all know, we’ve had strong momentum and adoption over the last few months,” Wu said in the note. “For many enterprise engineering teams, Devin is already a top contributor.”

Windsurf said in its blog post that its team will join forces with Cognition, its users and customers will “remain in steady hands and enjoy better product innovation than ever,” and its IP will be integrated into Cognition.

In a note shared with the company’s team and included in the post, Windsurf CEO Jeff Wang said that despite the turbulence caused by the loss of the company’s founders and research team, “so much of what makes us great is intact.”

“As you may have heard me (only half jokingly) say before, [Cognition was] the only team we were scared of,” Wang said. “Among all the teams in the AI space, Cognition was literally the one we have respected the most, and they are a perfect fit to bring Windsurf to the next phase.”

It was reported Friday that Google’s deal to recruit several Windsurf executives and researchers followed months of negotiations between Windsurf and OpenAI, which had explored a possible acquisition valued at $3 billion.

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