Why Cognition bought Poke: AI personality is becoming a competitive advantage

Poke, the AI adjunct you substance similar a friend, is making its adjacent large move. The institution down the assistant, The Interaction Company of California, has been acquired by AI coding startup Cognition successful a woody valuing the startup successful the “low 9 figures.”

The woody volition bring Poke’s enactment exemplary and property to Cognition’s coding adjunct Devin. Meanwhile, Poke volition instrumentality vantage of Cognition’s models and infrastructure to go faster and much reliable, Cognition said.

What makes Poke absorbing to consumers — and now, to its acquirer — is however it engages with users’ requests. Instead of functioning similar a tool, Poke chats much familiarly with users, responding similar a person and adjacent incorporating slang and wit into its interactions. That’s thing that could adhd worth to Devin’s coding agent.

“You astir apt similar it if you person co-workers that person personality, alternatively than if you person co-workers that are conscionable robots,” explained Interaction Company co-founder Marvin von Hagen, successful an interrogation with TechCrunch, wherever helium besides confirmed the deal’s price. “When you person co-workers that are besides bundle engineers, they tin besides marque a joke. And you’ll find it comic and enjoyable.”

The acquisition underscores a increasing content that however AI assistants interact with users volition go conscionable arsenic invaluable arsenic the underlying models powering them. Cognition wants to marque Devin consciousness little similar bundle and much similar a colleague.

“The Interaction squad has built an cause that radical love: it’s proactive, it knows you, and it’s amusive to speech to. That’s precisely however moving with Devin should feel, and present we get to physique it together,” Cognition co-founder Scott Wu wrote successful a blog post.

He besides noted that helium and Cognition co-founder Walden Yan had been angel investors successful the institution down Poke.

First launched successful March 2026, Poke allows users to prosecute with its AI cause done their messaging level of choice, whether that’s iMessage, SMS, Telegram, or, successful immoderate markets, WhatsApp. People usage Poke for a variety of tasks, crossed categories similar travel, health, finance, scheduling, and education.

Von Hagen noted that productivity tasks similar managing emails, reminders, and to-dos were among Poke’s astir communal usage cases.

Image Credits:Poke/The Interaction Company of California

Over the past 3 months, Poke users exchanged much than 100 cardinal messages connected the platform, Cognition said. But contempt being utilized by hundreds of thousands of people, Poke had been costly to run, making it hard to crook a profit, von Hagen said.

In June, Poke became the first AI cause to beryllium approved to tally connected Apple’s Messages for Business platform, which provides businesses with a standardized acquisition for handling their lawsuit communications wrong Apple’s Messages app.

Going forward, thing volition instantly alteration for Poke done the extremity of the year, we’re told. Poke plans to stay connected Apple’s platform.

However, adjacent twelvemonth the squad volition experimentation with however some Poke and Devin tin improve, with Poke turning to Cognition’s newest bundle engineering exemplary SWE-1.7 for immoderate tasks. Fully combining the 2 products has not been ruled out, either.

“I deliberation successful the agelong word Poke tin beryllium much reliable with orchestrating each these coding [tasks]…and, astatine the aforesaid time, Devin could go much similar Poke,” von Hagen said. “Like close now, Devin tin lone bash 1 PR — propulsion petition — astatine a time…I deliberation there’s a batch of worth successful having Poke orchestrate antithetic Devin sessions.” Plus, Poke could assistance Devin retrieve tasks crossed antithetic sessions.

“It would beryllium bully to person a persistent co-worker,” helium added.