Cognition acquires Poke AI assistant in low nine-figure deal
12 reported
AI coding startup Cognition has acquired Poke, an AI assistant developed by The Interaction Company of California, in a deal valued in the “low nine figures,” according to a TechCrunch report. The acquisition aims to bring Poke’s conversational personality to Cognition’s coding assistant Devin, while Poke will use Cognition’s models and infrastructure to become faster and more reliable. Poke engages users with a friendly, slang- and humor-infused style, which Cognition believes can make Devin feel more like a colleague than software. The Interaction Company co-founder Marvin von Hagen said users prefer co-workers with personality, and Cognition co-founder Scott Wu noted that his team had been angel investors in Poke. Poke launched in March 2026 and allows users to interact via iMessage, SMS, Telegram, or WhatsApp for tasks like travel, health, finance, scheduling, and education. Over the past three months, users exchanged more than 100 million messages on the platform, though von Hagen said Poke had been expensive to run and difficult to turn a profit. No immediate changes are planned for Poke through the end of the year, but next year the team will experiment with integrating Cognition’s SWE-1.7 model and possibly combining the two products.
What’s reported
Cognition acquired The Interaction Company of California, the company behind Poke, in a deal valued in the “low nine figures.”
The acquisition will bring Poke’s interaction model and personality to Cognition’s coding assistant Devin.
Poke will use Cognition’s models and infrastructure to become faster and more reliable.
Poke chats familiarly with users, incorporating slang and humor, unlike a tool-like assistant.
Cognition co-founder Scott Wu wrote that the Interaction team built an agent that is proactive, knows the user, and is fun to talk to.
Wu and Cognition co-founder Walden Yan had been angel investors in the company behind Poke.
Poke launched in March 2026 and works on iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp in some markets.
Common use cases include travel, health, finance, scheduling, education, and productivity tasks like managing emails, reminders, and to-dos.
Over the past three months, Poke users exchanged more than 100 million messages.
Poke had been expensive to run, making it difficult to turn a profit, according to von Hagen.
In June 2026, Poke became the first AI agent approved to run on Apple’s Messages for Business platform.
No immediate changes for Poke through the end of the year; next year the team will experiment with Cognition’s SWE-1.7 model and possibly combining Poke and Devin.
Key figures
Marvin von Hagen, co-founder of The Interaction Company
Scott Wu, co-founder of Cognition
Walden Yan, co-founder of Cognition
Sources: TechCrunch
