AI
Cognition acquires Poke to bring conversational AI into its coding agent
The acquisition values personality and user engagement as key competitive advantages in AI assistants.
TechCrunch — AI
Cognition, an AI coding startup, has acquired The Interaction Company of California—the firm behind Poke, a messaging-based AI assistant—in a deal valuing the company in the low nine figures. The move reflects a broader shift in how AI companies think about user experience: as much a product differentiator as the underlying technology.
The Appeal of Personality#
Poke stands out by conversing naturally with users, adopting a friendly tone complete with humor and slang rather than operating as a sterile tool. This conversational approach will now enhance Devin, Cognition's software engineering assistant. According to Interaction Company co-founder Marvin von Hagen, "You probably prefer it if you have co-workers that have personality, rather than if you have co-workers that are just robots."
The rationale applies directly to developer tools. A coding assistant that feels like a knowledgeable colleague rather than rigid software can improve both productivity and user satisfaction.
How Poke Works#
Launched in March 2026, Poke operates across messaging platforms including iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp in certain markets. Users leverage it for travel planning, health queries, financial advice, scheduling, and learning. The platform has proven especially useful for productivity tasks such as email management and task tracking.
Since its launch, Poke has facilitated over 100 million messages in the past three months alone. The platform gained further validation in June when it became the first AI agent approved for Apple's Messages for Business platform, allowing businesses to automate customer communications within the Messages app.
The Economics Behind the Deal#
Despite its popularity among hundreds of thousands of users, Poke faced economic challenges. Operating costs were substantial, making profitability difficult to achieve. Cognition's acquisition solves this problem by providing access to more efficient infrastructure and advanced models, including the company's latest SWE-1.7 software engineering model.
Cognition co-founder Scott Wu noted that Poke's team had already built something customers loved, and integrating that expertise into Devin would accelerate development of a more human-like coding partner.
