Cognition Acquires Poke to Enhance AI Assistant with Personality
The Interaction Company of California, known for its AI assistant Poke, has been acquired by Cognition in a deal valued at "low nine figures." The acquisition aims to integrate Poke's conversational style and personality into Cognition’s coding assistant Devin. Poke is notable for engaging users like a friend using humor and slang—traits that could enhance the user experience of more technical tools. Poke, launched in March 2026, allows interaction via messaging platforms such as iMessage or WhatsApp and has been used by hundreds of thousands of people across various tasks. Despite its popularity, it was costly to operate due to high usage—over 100 million messages exchanged over three months. Cognition co-founder Scott Wu emphasized the importance of making AI assistants feel like colleagues rather than tools. The companies plan no immediate changes for Poke through year-end but will explore integrating Cognition’s SWE-1.7 model into future improvements.
Topics: Acquisitions AI Startups