In a surprising move, Cognition– the makers of autonomous coding tool Devin— acquired what was left of its rival Windsurf after the company’s cofounders Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen and other staff members were poached by Google DeepMind for $2.

Bay Area tech companies are battling to build popular, useful artificial intelligence — and the fight just ripped apart a startup. Windsurf, an AI company based in Mountain View, began last week as a reported $3 billion acquisition target for OpenAI.

Artificial intelligence (AI) coding startup Windsurf announced Monday that it was being acquired by Cognition, an AI peer based out of San Francisco, California. This comes close on the heels of Windsurf disclosing a licensing agreement with Alphabet,

Windsurf faces acquisition by Cognition AI. This follows a collapsed deal with OpenAI. Google hired Windsurf's CEO Varun Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen. Google DeepMind also secured a license to Windsurf's tech for $2.

Microcap Cognition Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CGTX) has skyrocketed 35% in Thursday trading after stating the company had a positive end-of-phase 2 meeting with the U.S. FDA for the oral Alzheimer's asset zervimesine and sees a path forward for a phase 3 program.

Goldman Sachs just hired its first AI coder: Goldman is the first major bank to try out Cognition's agentic AI coder, Devin, signaling a seismic shift in how finance works alongside software https://t.co/5CEvbmAPWX pic.twitter.com/Yngj54XCyF — Quartz (@qz) July 11, 2025