Cognition CEO Scott Wu says AI coding agents should not replace humans

In short: Cognition CEO Scott Wu says AI coding agents like Devin should help programmers, not take their jobs.

What happened

Scott Wu, the CEO of Cognition, spoke with TechCrunch about the company’s AI coding agent called Devin. An AI coding agent is a tool that can take a task like “fix this bug” and do many steps on its own, like a junior coworker who can follow instructions.

The comments come right after Cognition raised $1 billion and was valued at about $26 billion, according to TechCrunch. Cognition has also described a future of “self-driving software development,” meaning software that can be built with much less hands-on work from people.

Wu said the company has “never thought about it as replacing humans.” He described Devin as “your buddy who helps you build more,” and said he does not want people to lose the joy of programming.

At the same time, Cognition says Devin writes most of its own software. The company said 89% of code committed by its engineers was committed by Devin, with the rest coming from other tools, including local agents in Windsurf, a competitor Cognition acquired last year.

Wu said the agent is often used for tedious maintenance work, like updating old software or moving an app from one platform to another. He added that Devin’s ability is “somewhere between a junior and a mid-level engineer,” depending on the task.

Why it matters

Many workers are worried that AI tools will be used to justify layoffs. Wu’s message is that these tools should act more like power tools (they make a job faster) than replacements, and that humans should still decide what gets built.

Source: TechCrunch AI