Cognition Acquires Startup Poke: AI Is Now Becoming a Friend

Another major deal has taken place in the world of AI: Cognition, the founder of the world's first AI programmer Devin, has acquired the Poke startup. Although the value of the acquisition has not been disclosed, according to TechCrunch, the deal is estimated at over 100 million dollars (nine-figure sum). This step indicates that AI's technical capabilities as well as its communication style and "personality" with users are becoming a competitive advantage. This is reported by Techcrunch.com reports .

Poke is a smart assistant that communicates with users like a normal friend and works via text messages. Developed by California-based The Interaction Company, this service stands out with its friendly language, humor-rich responses, and ability to even use street slang. Now this communication model will be integrated into the Devin programmer-agent.

Not a programmer, a colleague

According to Cognition's founders, AI should not just be a tool that executes dry commands. The company wants Devin users to feel like they are working with a real colleague. Marvin von Hagen, one of Poke's founders, emphasized that people prefer to work with specialists who have a personality and understand humor rather than robots.

Launched in March 2024, the Poke assistant serves through platforms like iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp. Users get advice from it in various fields such as travel planning, healthcare, finance, and education. Productivity tasks such as managing emails and setting reminders remain the most popular directions.

According to statistics, over the last three months, Poke users have exchanged more than 100 million messages on the platform. Nevertheless, maintaining a service with hundreds of thousands of users and funding its computing power was becoming quite expensive. Merging with Cognition will give the startup a more powerful infrastructure and fast performance.

New era strategy

Another interesting aspect of this deal is that Cognition founders Scott Wu and Walden Yan had previously invested in the Poke project as personal investors. Now they aim to fully implement this technology into their main product. This could initiate a new trend in the AI market — an era where the level of emotional communication is more important than algorithm accuracy.

This news is also significant for users, as such AI assistants working via messengers like Telegram are very convenient for easing daily chores. The "humanization" of complex systems like Devin will serve to make the software creation process even more interesting and easier in the future.