AI startup Cognition has acquired The Interaction Company of California, the creator of Poke, an AI assistant known for its conversational, friendly style. The deal, valued in the low nine figures, will integrate Poke’s engaging personality and interaction model into Cognition’s coding agent Devin. This move reflects a broader trend recognizing that how AI assistants interact with users is becoming as crucial as their technical capabilities. By blending Poke’s approachable communication style with Devin’s technical strengths, Cognition aims to make AI feel like a more relatable and enjoyable colleague.

Poke stands out by chatting with users as if it were a friend, using slang and humor to make interactions feel natural rather than robotic. Since its launch in March 2026, Poke has served hundreds of thousands of users who engage with the assistant across messaging platforms like iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp. Common uses include travel advice, managing finances, scheduling, and especially productivity tasks such as handling emails, reminders, and to-dos. Despite heavy usage exceeding 100 million messages exchanged in three months, Poke’s operating costs remained high, which partly motivated the acquisition.

Cognition plans to leverage its infrastructure and advanced models, like the new SWE-1.7 software engineering model, to improve Poke’s speed and reliability. Meanwhile, the Poke team sees an opportunity to enhance Devin by combining the two products’ strengths. For instance, Poke could orchestrate multiple Devin coding sessions simultaneously and maintain context across interactions, turning Devin into a more persistent and personable AI teammate. The companies are exploring these integrations beginning next year but will maintain separate products on Apple’s Messages for Business platform through 2026.

This acquisition highlights the growing importance of AI personality as a competitive advantage in the assistant market. Cognition co-founder Scott Wu expressed excitement about merging Poke’s proactive, engaging attributes with Devin’s technical prowess, aiming to create an AI experience that feels less like software and more like working alongside a human colleague. As AI continues evolving, the way assistants engage users may become a defining factor in adoption and satisfaction, pushing companies to prioritize conversational style alongside raw AI power.