AI Software Engineer ‘Devin’ Rolled Out for Government Use

An AI coding and software engineering platform officially launching Wednesday for government use is aimed at migrating agencies’ outdated computer systems to modern programming languages.

The autonomous AI product, called Cognition for Government, can be used for every stage of software development, according to AI startup Cognition. An AI software engineer called Devin performs tasks in the background.

The company already has raised more than $1 billion for their products, which are based on Anthropic, OpenAI, and Cognitive’s own models. They are used in the private sector by Goldman Sachs and Cloudflare as well as the Army, Navy and the Treasury Department.

Many government agencies and departments run massive computer systems based on outdated software languages. The product can help the government get up to speed without the need to hire additional staff, the company said. Scott Wu, co-founder and CEO of Cognition, said a number of federal agencies have run pilots and are trying out the product.

“You can assign Devin a task or a bug or an issue or something like that, and Devin will work through the entire issue, make the right changes, test the code, fix the code, and so on, just the same way that a human software engineer would,” Wu said.

The software engineering platform is authorized and certified for federal use across agencies. The platform can be used for every stage of software development, including building new features and reviewing code.