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Autonomous AI coding startup Cognition has signed a definitive settlement to amass Windsurf, the AI developer instruments startup greatest identified for its agentic built-in improvement setting (IDE), the 2 firms introduced on their respective X accounts on Monday. No acquisition quantity was disclosed publicly, nor had been particular phrases of the deal (each are personal startups).
The acquisition offers Cognition entry to Windsurf’s core product, model, and remaining staff — however not its authentic CEO or co-founders, a number of of whom have now joined Google in a separate $2.4 billion expertise and licensing deal, as The Verge first reported final week.
In a joint video posted to X that includes Cognition CEO Scott Wu and interim Windsurf CEO Jeff Wang, the leaders mentioned they’d begin by integrating Cognition’s autonomous AI-powered engineer Devin into Windsurf’s IDE.
This mixed providing is aimed toward enabling builders to plan duties, delegate code technology to AI brokers, and assessment pull requests—all inside a single interface.
“This can be a excellent match,” mentioned Wang, who was beforehand Windsurf’s head of enterprise. “Working with the very best engineering staff within the area shall be an unbelievable unlock for our product and our go-to-market staff.”
In an organization weblog publish titled “The Subsequent Chapter,” Wang straight acknowledged the interior upheaval: “Final week, we misplaced our founders and our analysis staff.”
He praised the remaining employees for his or her professionalism in the course of the transition and emphasised that regardless of the disruption, “a lot of what makes us nice is unbroken.”
In response to Jeff, Windsurf continues to double enterprise income quarter-over-quarter and maintains lots of of 1000’s of each day lively customers.
Cognition emphasised that the deal contains full monetary participation for Windsurf staff, together with waived cliffs and accelerated vesting.
Wang additionally said within the announcement video: “And naturally, we’re pals with Anthropic once more,” an overt reference to Windsurf’s prior falling out with the separate AI mannequin supplier firm that resulted in Anthropic Claude fashions being pulled from the checklist of choices that builders may depend on to energy their Windsurf AI coding brokers and processes.
However the brand new chapter follows a chaotic and fragmented few months, marked by aborted acquisition talks, misplaced mannequin entry, and main govt departures.
Fragmented exit: Cognition will get the product and customers, Google will get the founders
On July 11, Google confirmed it had employed Varun Mohan, Windsurf’s co-founder and CEO, together with different senior R&D staff members.
CNBC reported that Google is paying $2.4 billion in compensation and licensing charges as a part of the deal, which features a nonexclusive license to pick Windsurf expertise.
The deal does not embody any fairness funding in Windsurf, nor a full acquisition of the corporate.
“We’re excited to welcome some prime AI coding expertise from Windsurf’s staff to Google DeepMind,” mentioned a Google spokesperson in that article.
Windsurf, in the meantime, retains the power to license its expertise to others and can proceed working independently beneath Wang’s management.
The break up construction displays a fragmented decision to what had earlier been reported as a full-scale acquisition by OpenAI.
Bloomberg reported again in Could 2025 that OpenAI had entered exclusivity negotiations to purchase Windsurf for as much as $3 billion. Nonetheless, these talks fell aside, and OpenAI later advised CNBC that the exclusivity interval had expired.
Whereas the corporate by no means formally confirmed the OpenAI acquisition, the fallout was seen — Windsurf’s communications channels went silent, its product skilled instability, and a number of companions reportedly backed away.
Associates with Anthropic but once more
Among the many most damaging blows got here from Anthropic, which revoked Windsurf’s entry to its Claude 3.x mannequin household in early June.
In a press release printed on its weblog, Windsurf confirmed that Anthropic had lower off almost all first-party API capability to Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and associated fashions with lower than every week’s discover.
In response, Windsurf needed to reroute site visitors by way of third-party inference suppliers and prohibit entry for free-tier customers. The corporate additionally launched promotional pricing for Gemini Professional as a short lived substitute.
Anthropic co-founder Jared Kaplan defined the choice at TechCrunch Periods: AI 2025, saying the corporate couldn’t justify supplying its largest competitor, OpenAI, with entry to its fashions by way of a center layer.
“It might be odd for us to promote Claude to OpenAI,” he mentioned, citing each aggressive pressure and Anthropic’s restricted compute capability. Kaplan added that Anthropic prefers to concentrate on “lasting partnerships” just like the one it maintains with Cursor.
Windsurf, in its assertion, expressed disappointment and emphasised that its platform is about extra than simply mannequin entry. “The magic of Windsurf has by no means been restricted to the mannequin,” the corporate wrote, highlighting UX options, enterprise integrations, and agentic workflows.
A brand new product imaginative and prescient for the mixed Windsurf/Cognition/Devin
Cognition’s settlement now brings long-needed readability to Windsurf’s operational route. In a video asserting the deal, Scott, CEO of Cognition, described how the 2 platforms will combine: “Think about planning duties in Windsurf, launching a staff of Devins, and reviewing PRs from the consolation of your IDE.”
Devin, which may autonomously full software program duties comparable to fixing bugs and deploying apps, will now be embedded straight into Windsurf’s IDE.
The businesses say this setup will give builders the power to dump repetitive work to a number of brokers in parallel, whereas nonetheless protecting management over key architectural choices.
Cognition views this as the following step in constructing collaborative human-agent programs, and says Windsurf’s IDE offers the lacking interface layer to make agentic workflows sensible at scale. Each firms expressed confidence that customers will profit from a extra fluid, tightly built-in improvement expertise.
The Windsurf weblog publish additionally expanded on product-level plans, confirming that Windsurf’s current options like Tab and Cascade — used for guide high-leverage coding — will stay built-in within the IDE.
Builders will be capable to assign work to “a staff of Devins” whereas nonetheless leaping in to finish or edit advanced components themselves. “It seamlessly will get stitched again collectively all inside the similar setting,” Wang wrote.
Consolidation amid competitors
The mixed Cognition-Windsurf entity now competes straight with GitHub Copilot, Replit, Cursor, and different AI-native IDE gamers. Google’s Gemini platform and Microsoft’s Visible Studio Code with “agent mode” are additionally increasing quickly into this area.
Devin made headlines earlier this yr for its potential to autonomously remedy GitHub points and full end-to-end coding duties. Merging that functionality with Windsurf’s customizable setting—together with options like Previews, Opinions, and Enterprise workflows—could create a product with fewer silos and extra automation than rivals.
Nonetheless, the continuing expertise struggle means aggressive benefit is short-lived. Google’s potential to rent Windsurf’s founding staff—together with Varun Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen—indicators that even partial exits now include multibillion-dollar value tags. Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft have made comparable strikes, absorbing key figures from startups like Scale AI, Adept, and Inflection.
Regardless of the management shake-up, Windsurf is constant operations beneath Wang’s management.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class staff will proceed to construct the Windsurf product with the aim of maximizing its influence within the enterprise,” he mentioned in a press release.
Wang additionally emphasised that the staff selected Cognition over different viable choices, citing not solely technical alignment however admiration: “They had been the one staff we had been frightened of.”
He famous that Cognition’s income is rising even sooner than Windsurf’s and that its $300 million in funding and $4 billion valuation mirror sturdy monetary footing.
The corporate is predicted to concentrate on enterprise readiness, agentic IDE capabilities, and hybrid/federated deployments — core options which have helped it stand out amongst a crowded subject.
For builders, the trail ahead now contains each continuity and alter: a product that stays alive inside Cognition, a founding staff now at DeepMind, and a panorama that’s rapidly consolidating round mannequin entry and engineering expertise.
