The move is the culmination of a turbulent period for Windsurf, and indicates that agentic IDEs have become a new battleground.

In a surprising move, Cognition– the makers of autonomous coding tool Devin— acquired what was left of its rival Windsurf after the company’s cofounders Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen and other staff members were poached by Google DeepMind for $2.

Varun Mohan, MIT-educated co-founder of AI startup Windsurf, was hired by Google in a move that came after OpenAI’s reported bid to acquire the company.

Google's strategic acquisition of Windsurf leaders strengthens its AI coding efforts amidst intense competition for top talent.

Varun Mohan, a math prodigy turned MIT engineer, co-founded Windsurf, an AI startup revolutionizing software development. Google recognized Windsurf's

After OpenAI’s failed bid, Windsurf's leadership joined Google, while Cognition Labs acquired the startup in a strategic AI shake-up.

Windsurf is an AI-powered developer tool that enables users to build full-stack applications using natural language prompts. They compete with Cursor and

Google wants its AI models to become bigger in coding. It has now hired the CEO of one of the top startups in that area.

The already fierce rivalry between AI titans is heightened by this development. Microsoft is developing its own AI-driven coding tools through "agent mode" in Visual Studio Code, and Meta recently hired Alexandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI, to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion initiative.