Magic AI vs Cognition

By valuation, Cognition is the larger company at $10.2B versus $1.5B — a 6.8x difference. Size can also be measured by team: Magic AI employs 75 people while Cognition has 50 employees.

Cognition has raised more in total funding at $696M, compared to Magic AI's $465M — a gap of $231M. Combined, the two companies have completed 4 known funding rounds.

Cognition leads with an Awaira Score of 82/100, while Magic AI sits at 72/100. That 10-point gap reflects real differences in funding, scale, and traction — it's not a vanity metric.

Magic AI was founded by Eric Steinberger in 2022. Cognition was founded by Scott Wu in 2023. Visit each company's profile on Awaira for a full founder biography.

Magic AI: Magic AI develops large-context-window AI models purpose-built for software engineering, enabling codebases with millions of lines to be understood and modified by a single AI system. The company's core technology centers on extending transformer context lengths far beyond industry norms, allowing its models to reason across entire repositories rather than isolated code snippets. This architectural approach positions Magic AI to tackle enterprise-grade software complexity that existing code assistants cannot handle. The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2022 and has raised approximately $465 million in venture funding, reaching a $1.5 billion valuation at its Series C round. Notable backers include Eric Schmidt and CapitalG. The founding team brings deep expertise in machine learning research, with a particular focus on long-range sequence modeling and efficient attention mechanisms that make massive context windows computationally feasible. Magic AI competes in the rapidly expanding AI code generation market alongside GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Cognition's Devin. However, its differentiation lies in full-repository comprehension rather than file-level autocomplete. The company targets enterprise development teams managing complex, interconnected codebases where context fragmentation has historically limited AI utility. As organizations accelerate AI adoption in software development workflows, Magic AI's ability to process entire systems of code positions it as a distinct entrant in a market projected to exceed $45 billion by 2028. Cognition: Cognition is an AI development tools company founded in 2023 and headquartered in the USA, best known for creating Devin, billed as the first AI software engineer capable of autonomously planning, coding, debugging, and deploying software projects. Cognition develops software tools designed to assist software developers in coding tasks through artificial intelligence. The company's primary offering focuses on AI-powered code generation and development assistance, positioning itself within the broader AI developer tools market that has expanded significantly following the emergence of large language models capable of code synthesis. Cognition's technology employs machine learning to analyze code patterns, suggest implementations, and automate routine development tasks. The company competes alongside established players and newer entrants in the AI coding assistant space, where differentiation hinges on code quality, language support, integration capabilities, and developer experience. Cognition's rapid valuation growth reflects investor confidence in the AI development tools category, which addresses productivity bottlenecks in software engineering. The company has attracted substantial institutional funding from Founders Fund and others, indicating strong market traction and investor appetite for solutions targeting the developer tools segment. Cognition's positioning suggests focus on enterprise and professional developer markets, though specific customer details remain not disclosed. The company's trajectory reflects the broader expansion of AI application across software development workflows. Cognition achieved unicorn status within months of founding, signaling aggressive investor enthusiasm for AI-native developer tools.

Magic AI got there first, launching in 2022 — that's 1 year of extra runway. Cognition didn't arrive until 2023. In AI, that kind of head start means more training data, deeper customer relationships, and a bigger talent moat.

Magic AI has about 75 employees; Cognition has about 50. A bigger team usually means more revenue or heavier VC backing, but in AI, small teams can build at massive scale.

Yes — they're direct rivals. Both Magic AI and Cognition compete in AI Dev Tools, targeting many of the same buyers. If you're evaluating one, you should be looking at the other.