OpenAI has reached agreement to buy the artificial intelligence-assisted coding tool Windsurf for about $3 billion. The acquisition, if completed, would be the ChatGPT maker’s largest purchase to date.
The deal has not yet closed. Windsurf was formerly known as Codeium.
Windsurf operates as an AI based coding tool. Such tools allow developers to write code faster using natural language prompts, assisting with debugging and fixing errors.
The acquisition could position OpenAI to compete more directly with rivals like Anthropic and Microsoft's Github, which already offer AI coding tools for programmers.
Before the reported agreement with OpenAI, Windsurf had reportedly engaged in discussions with investors such as Kleiner Perkins and General Catalyst to secure funding at a $3 billion valuation. The generative AI based startup was valued at $1.25 billion last year in a transaction led by General Catalyst.
OpenAI recently received a $40 billion financing round from SoftBank, valuing the company at $300 billion.
In other company news, OpenAI announced a change to its corporate structure this week. The firm stated it would not proceed with a plan to remove control from its non-profit arm.
Under the new organizational structure, the for-profit LLC, which has been under the non-profit entity since 2019, will transition into a Public Benefit Corporation, or PBC. The non-profit will maintain a large stake and retain control.
OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman addressed the changes in a blog post.
"Instead of our current complex capped-profit structure—which made sense when it looked like there might be one dominant AGI effort but doesn’t in a world of many great AGI companies—we are moving to a normal capital structure where everyone has stock. This is not a sale, but a change of structure to something simpler,” Sam Altman said.