Exclusive: New AI startup with ‘extreme’ work culture takes over S.F. office abandoned by Cruise

A San Francisco artificial-intelligence startup valued at $26 billion is set to fill a South of Market building that once formed part of Cruise's sprawling headquarters.

A San Francisco artificial intelligence startup valued at $26 billion is set to fill a South of Market building that once formed part of the sprawling headquarters campus of robotaxi company Cruise.

Cognition, the company behind Devin, an autonomous AI agent designed to help software engineers write and test code, has signed a lease for 333 Brannan St. Cruise had placed the 180,000-square-foot building on the sublease market.

Multiple real estate sources familiar with the deal, which was brokered by real estate firm CBRE, confirmed this week that Cognition is taking over Cruise’s sublease for five years in the Kilroy Realty-owned building.

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Cognition did not respond to a request for comment. A Kilroy representative declined to comment.

The deal will expand Cognition’s San Francisco footprint more than sevenfold over its current 25,000-square-foot space at 550 Third St. in the South Park neighborhood.

The expansion follows a rapid run of fundraising that lifted Cognition’s valuation from about $4 billion in March 2025 to $26 billion after the company raised more than $1 billion in May 2026.

Founded in 2023 by Walden Yan, Steven Hao and Scott Wu, Cognition counts Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Bain Capital Ventures among its backers. The company reportedly had more than 200 employees as of March.

More recently, it became known for its extreme work culture, with its founders offering buyouts to a handful of employees who were unwilling to let go of work-life balance.

“This is another example of an AI occupier scaling and committing to a large block of office space,” said Derek Daniels, regional research director for real estate firm Colliers, who added that office demand from young AI startups and other companies has become ”more broad across the city with activity increasingly pushing into SoMa.”

That neighborhood, once a hot bed for tech firms and bursting at the seams in the years leading up to the pandemic, has been among the areas hardest hit by the post-2020 retreat of San Francisco's office tenants.

“If leasing continues at this pace, 2026 may end the year with a record level of office leasing volume,” Daniels said.

Cognition’s rapid rise stands in sharp contrast to the fortunes of Cruise, 333 Brannan’s former tenant. Cruise’s robotaxi business unraveled after a 2023 crash in San Francisco prompted state regulators to suspend the company’s driverless testing and deployment permits. Federal regulators later found that Cruise had failed to fully report details of the incident.

Cruise was among the earliest major companies to test autonomous vehicles on San Francisco streets. But General Motors, which owned a majority stake in Cruise, stopped funding its robotaxi operation in 2024 and moved to take full control of the company. GM subsequently cut roughly half of Cruise’s workforce and folded much of its remaining technology and talent into its own autonomous-driving and driver-assistance programs.

Cruise has also marketed two other buildings in its former Brannan Street campus to subtenants. In 2024, it put its 110,000-square-foot office at 345 Brannan St. on the sublease market, seven years before its lease was set to expire. That building remains vacant.

Another 80,000-square-foot building at 301 Brannan St. had been marketed for sublease since at least 2021. At its peak, Cruise occupied at least five San Francisco office buildings.