Cognition acquires Poke to add AI personality to coding agent Devin
Original: Why Cognition bought Poke: AI personality is becoming a competitive advantage
Why This Matters
The deal signals that AI interaction style and personality are emerging as key competitive differentiators in the agent market.
AI coding startup Cognition acquired Poke, an AI assistant app made by The Interaction Company of California, in a deal valued in the 'low nine figures.' The deal aims to bring Poke's friendly, personality-driven interaction model to Cognition's coding agent Devin, while Poke gains access to Cognition's infrastructure.
Cognition, the startup behind AI coding agent Devin, has acquired Poke — an AI assistant that users engage with via iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp — from The Interaction Company of California. The deal was valued in the 'low nine figures,' confirmed by Poke co-founder Marvin von Hagen. Poke, launched in March 2026, is designed to respond like a friend rather than a tool, incorporating humor and slang into conversations. Users have exchanged over 100 million messages on the platform in the past three months, with hundreds of thousands of active users. Common use cases include travel, health, finance, scheduling, and email/reminder management. Despite its popularity, von Hagen acknowledged Poke had been costly to operate and struggled to turn a profit. Cognition's co-founder Scott Wu, who was also an angel investor in Poke, stated in a blog post: 'The Interaction team has built an agent that people love: it's proactive, it knows you, and it's fun to talk to. That's exactly how working with Devin should feel.' In June 2026, Poke became the first AI agent approved to run on Apple's Messages for Business platform. No immediate changes are planned for Poke users through the end of 2026.