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Cognition pays low nine figures for Poke to give Devin a personality layer

7/26/2026

A valuation in the low nine figures is what Cognition, the AI coding startup behind the Devin agent, paid to acquire Poke, the AI assistant built around texting like a friend.

No component breakdown of that figure was reported. What the deal transfers is Poke's conversational interaction model: the behavioral layer above the language model that shapes how a product actually feels to use.

What the deal is actually about Cognition wants Poke's approach to conversation design layered into Devin. Poke was built around informal, text-like exchanges with users.

The combination signals that Cognition believes the gap between a capable AI and one users return to is increasingly a product design problem, not a model capability problem.

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