OpenAI is in talks to acquire Windsurf for about $3 billion, a move that would put the ChatGPT maker squarely in competition with artificial intelligence (AI) coding assistant providers that include Anysphere, which OpenAI backed from its startup fund.
The acquisition, which would be OpenAI’s largest to date, comes after it reportedly approached Anysphere about a possible sale, according to a CNBC report. Last month, Anysphere was in discussions to raise funding at a valuation of close to $10 billion.
When things didn’t pan out, OpenAI pivoted to Windsurf. The latter negotiation was first reported by Bloomberg.
In recent days, rumors have pinged across the AI world of a possible deal. Windsurf users received an email that said an imminent announcement would soon give them the option to access the coding editor for $10 a month.
Adding fuel to the speculation, OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil recently praised Windsurf in a video this week.
Formerly known as Codeium, Windsurf has been in talks to raise new funding at a $2.85 billion valuation led by venture capital icon Kleiner Perkins, TechCrunch reported in February. Windsurf has annual recurring revenue of $40 million. So far, Windsurf has collected $243 million in investments from General Catalyst and Greenoaks Capital, according to data provided by market researcher PitchBook.
As coding has become more widespread in AI worldwide, the popularity of tools like Cursor, Bolt, Replit and Vercel has exploded. As of March, for instance, more than one million people were using Cursor daily, according to Bloomberg.
That has piqued the interest of OpenAI, which has reportedly met with more than 20 companies in the AI coding domain, CNBC reported.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently posted on the social media platform X that his company’s new o3 and o4 mini reasoning models are “super good at coding, so we are releasing a new product, Codex CLI, to make them easier to use.”
