How an AI Tool 'Feels' to Use Is Becoming as Important as What It Can Do
The short answer
Cognition's acquisition of conversational AI startup Poke signals that interaction style and personality — not just capability — are becoming a real differentiator in AI products, including tools aimed at business users. Most small businesses evaluate AI tools on features and price.
- AI tools
- customer experience
- conversational AI
- product selection
What happened
Cognition, the company behind AI coding agent Devin, has acquired Poke, a startup focused on conversational personality and interaction design. The deal brings Poke's communication style and interaction model into Devin. Cognition framed the acquisition around what it describes as a growing industry belief: that how an AI assistant interacts with users is as important as the underlying model powering it.
The move reflects a broader shift in AI product development. As the raw capabilities of major AI models have become more comparable across providers, the texture of the experience — tone, phrasing, how the AI guides a user through a task — is emerging as a meaningful differentiator. Cognition's bet is that users will consistently prefer an AI that communicates well over one that is technically equivalent but feels mechanical or impersonal.
What it means for your business
Most small businesses evaluate AI tools on features and price. This acquisition is a useful reminder to add one more variable: how the tool communicates. For any AI that will interact directly with your customers — a booking assistant, a support chatbot, an AI-generated follow-up message — run it through realistic sample conversations before committing. A tool that feels cold, overly formal, or off-brand can quietly erode customer trust in ways a feature comparison won't surface. As vendors increasingly compete on personality, meaningfully different experiences are appearing even among products at similar price points.
Source: TechCrunch