Google's cloud division said on the 4th (local time) that it signed a multi-year partnership with the artificial intelligence (AI) coding startup "Replit."
Replit received a $250 million investment after its corporate value was recognized at $3 billion (about 4.4 trillion won) in September. It is a startup optimized for "vibe coding," which writes code when non-developers enter commands in everyday language (natural language). Under this partnership, Replit's vibe coding features will be closely integrated into Google platforms, including Gemini
It means corporate customers using Google Cloud will be able to use Replit's vibe coding features to boost developer productivity. The partnership is seen as a sign that Google intends to actively move into AI coding, considered a "cash cow" in AI.
Google and OpenAI have focused on showcasing their technical prowess and raising awareness among general users through AI chatbots such as Gemini and ChatGPT. However, AI chatbots are known to do little for corporate revenue.
By contrast, coding has already established itself as a real-demand market where actual corporate customers open their wallets. In response, big tech companies have worked to enter this field by building their own AI coding capabilities or acquiring related startups.
Anthropic has boosted profitability by focusing on improving coding capabilities to attract corporate customers instead of a chatbot, and "Cursor," considered a leading AI coding startup, is said to have surpassed $1 billion in annual sales. OpenAI approached Cursor several times for an acquisition but was rejected, and then sought to acquire another AI coding startup, Windsurf, but that also fell through.
By contrast, in July Google carried out an acqui-hire from Windsurf, bringing in CEO Varun Mohan and the core development team to strengthen its AI coding competitiveness. With this partnership with Replit, it also secured a platform to attract customers and secured distribution channels. On this basis, Google has made a full-fledged entry into the AI coding field led by Anthropic and Cursor, while pulling ahead of OpenAI in competition in this area.
However, OpenAI has shifted the center of its strategy away from developing AI coding tools used by humans and toward developing AI agents that code on their own to replace humans altogether.