// Workers AI · dad joke modeDoes Cognition AI know its dad? It's a relative thought.
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| Type | Private |
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| Industry | Information technology |
| Founded | November 2023 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
Key people |
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| Products |
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Number of employees | 200 (2026)[1] |
| Website | cognition |
Cognition AI, Inc. (also known as Cognition Labs), doing business as Cognition, is an American artificial intelligence (AI) company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company developed Devin AI, an AI software developer.
History
[edit]Cognition was founded in August 2023 by Scott Wu, Steven Hao, and Walden Yan.[2][3] All three were competitive programmers who won gold medals at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI).[4][5]
In March 2024, Cognition released a demo of its AI coding tool, Devin AI, which was said to be able to perform the tasks of a software engineer.[2]
Cognition boasted that its 10-person team as of March 2024 has won a total of 10 IOI gold medals. Apart from its founders, other members of the team who are gold medalists include Wu's brother Neal, Gennady Korotkevich and Andrew He. Wu stated this background gives Cognition an edge in AI competition as teaching an AI to be a programmer is a very deep algorithmic problem that requires the system to make complex decisions.[4][5][6]
The company was backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund which provided $21 million in early 2024, valuing the company at $350 million.[2] In April 2024, Founders Fund led a $175 million investment into Cognition valuing the company at $2 billion making it a unicorn.[7]
In March 2025, Cognition reached a valuation of $4 billion after a new funding round led by Joe Lonsdale's 8VC.[8]
In July 2025, Cognition signed a definitive agreement to acquire Windsurf,[9] an agentic IDE, after the fallout from Google's $2.4 billion acquihire of their CEO and other senior employees.[10] After the acquisition, Cognition was valued at $10 billion in September 2025.[11] In June 2026, Cognition announced rebranding of Windsurf to Devin Desktop.[12]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ↑ Jetha, Rya (March 24, 2026). "Inside the grind: The SF startup racing to build an AI software engineer". The San Francisco Standard.
- 1 2 3 Jin, Berber (March 30, 2024). "Exclusive | A Peter Thiel-Backed AI Startup, Cognition Labs, Seeks $2 Billion Valuation". WSJ. Archived from the original on May 25, 2024. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
- ↑ "Five Harvard Students Just Won $100,000 From Peter Thiel. Now, They Have to Drop Out. | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved July 1, 2026.
- 1 2 Vance, Ashlee (March 12, 2024). "Gold-Medalist Coders Build an AI That Can Do Their Job for Them". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on March 14, 2024. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
- 1 2 网易 (March 13, 2024). "李彦宏黄仁勋刚说完程序员要消失，这个90 后华人团队就拿出了AI产品Devin". www.163.com. Archived from the original on May 25, 2024. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
- ↑ "NAC-NAPC Trainers". University of Central Florida. Archived from the original on July 10, 2024. Retrieved March 22, 2025.
- ↑ Clark, Kate (April 24, 2024). "Six-Month-Old AI Coding Startup Valued at $2 Billion by Founders Fund". The Information.
- ↑ Clark, Kate (March 18, 2025). "Cognition AI Hits $4 Billion Valuation in Deal Led by Lonsdale's Firm". Bloomberg News.
- ↑ "Cognition's acquisition of Windsurf". cognition.ai. July 14, 2025. Retrieved July 26, 2025.
- ↑ Capoot, Ashley (July 14, 2025). "Cognition to buy AI startup Windsurf days after Google poached CEO in $2.4 billion licensing deal". CNBC. Retrieved July 26, 2025.
- ↑ Ludlow, Edward (September 8, 2025). "Cognition AI Reaches $10 Billion Valuation With New Funding". Bloomberg News.
- ↑ "Windsurf is now Devin Desktop". devin.ai. June 2, 2026. Retrieved July 1, 2026.
