In a stunning reversal, Google DeepMind acquires Windsurf’s top talent just weeks after OpenAI’s $3B deal collapsed over IP tensions with Microsoft.

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.

Cognition CEO Scott Wu and interim Windsurf CEO Jeff Wang said they would start by integrating the AI-powered engineer Devin into Windsurf.

Cognition acquires Windsurf to integrate IDE with AI agent Devin, promoting synergy and innovation in AI-assisted coding.

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,

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.

Windsurf is an AI-powered developer tool that enables users to build full-stack applications using natural language prompts. They compete with Cursor and

As of Friday, Windsurf’s head of business, Jeff Wang, will take over as the startup’s interim CEO, he announced in a post on social media. Most of Windsurf’s 250 person team is not headed to Google DeepMind and will continue offering its AI coding tools for enterprise customers.

Google hired Windsurf’s core team and licensed its AI tech for $2.4B to support agentic coding in DeepMind’s Gemini project.