Cognition AI Acquires Windsurf IP, Talent Amid $2.4B Google Deal

In July 2025, Cognition AI acquired the remaining assets and team of Windsurf, an AI coding startup, following a $2.4 billion reverse-acquihire by Google that secured Windsurf's leadership and licensing rights. Cognition's acquisition includes Windsurf's full-stack AI integrated development environment (IDE), intellectual property, and employees not hired by Google, strengthening Cognition's flagship autonomous coding agent, Devin. Windsurf had reached $82 million in annualized recurring revenue with a rapidly growing enterprise customer base, including Dell and Zillow. Cognition has implemented retention incentives such as waived vesting cliffs and accelerated equity grants to maintain team stability, contrasting with the typical instability seen in reverse-acquihire scenarios. The integration aims to combine Windsurf's agentic IDE with Devin's codebase analysis capabilities, allowing developers to plan and distribute coding tasks more effectively using multiple AI agents. This acquisition underscores the fierce competition among AI companies, including Google, OpenAI, and Meta, to dominate the AI-driven software development market.