Cognition acquires AI coding startup Windsurf, gaining its IP, talent, and user base, strengthening its position to compete with OpenAI, Cursor, and Anthropic.

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.

In a $2.4 billion deal, Google recruited the chief executive and a co-founder of Windsurf, which OpenAI had been in talks to buy, as the battle to dominate artificial intelligence escalates.

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.

OpenAI’s $3B Windsurf deal falls through as Google DeepMind picks up key talent and tech in a non-exclusive agreement.

OpenAI is the world's leading AI startup. For how long will depend on how well it fends off multi-front attacks from competitors like Meta and Google.