Cognition AI, Inc., also known as Cognition Labs and doing business as Cognition, is an American artificial intelligence company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company is best known for developing Devin AI, an AI-powered software developer designed to perform tasks typically handled by human software engineers. Cognition has attracted significant venture capital investment and has become one of the most valuable AI startups focused on coding automation.
Founding and team
Cognition was founded in August 2023 by Scott Wu, Steven Hao, and Walden Yan. All three founders were competitive programmers who had won gold medals at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). The company's early team was notably small, with only 10 members as of March 2024, yet collectively they had won a total of 10 IOI gold medals. Besides the founders, other gold medalists on the team included Wu's brother Neal, Gennady Korotkevich, and Andrew He. Scott Wu stated that this competitive programming background gave Cognition an edge in AI development, as teaching an AI to be a programmer is a deeply algorithmic problem requiring complex decision-making.
Devin AI and product development
In March 2024, Cognition released a demo of its AI coding tool, Devin AI. The tool was claimed to be able to perform the tasks of a software engineer, including writing code, debugging, and managing software projects. The demo generated significant attention in the tech community and positioned Cognition as a leader in the emerging field of AI-assisted software development. The company's approach leverages advances in large language models and generative AI to create an agent that can work autonomously on coding tasks.
Funding and valuation
Cognition received early backing from Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, which provided $21 million in early 2024, valuing the company at $350 million. In April 2024, Founders Fund led a $175 million investment round, raising Cognition's valuation to $2 billion and making it a unicorn. The company continued to grow rapidly: in March 2025, it reached a valuation of $4 billion after a funding round led by Joe Lonsdale's 8VC. In July 2025, Cognition signed a definitive agreement to acquire Windsurf, an agentic integrated development environment (IDE), following the departure of Windsurf's CEO and other senior employees in a $2.4 billion acquihire by Google. After the acquisition, Cognition was valued at $10 billion in September 2025, and by May 2026, its valuation had risen to $26 billion. Bloomberg reported in August 2026 that Cognition had entered early discussions with investors for new financing at a valuation of at least $40 billion. In June 2026, Cognition announced the rebranding of Windsurf to Devin Desktop.
Impact and industry context
Cognition operates in a competitive landscape that includes other AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, as well as specialized coding tool startups. The company's focus on AI software developers aligns with broader trends in artificial intelligence and machine learning, where AI systems are increasingly used to automate complex cognitive tasks. Cognition's rapid valuation growth reflects investor confidence in the potential of AI to transform software engineering. The acquisition of Windsurf and the subsequent rebranding to Devin Desktop indicate a strategy to integrate AI coding agents with developer tools, potentially reshaping how software is built.
See also
- List of AI-assisted software development tools
- List of artificial intelligence companies