Israeli artificial intelligence-assisted software development firm Codota Dot Com Ltd. Monday said it has acquired code prediction tool TabNine for an undisclosed sum.

Founded in 2018 and based in Canada, TabNine uses deep learning to assist in AI-driven code completion for coders, with support for 23 programming languages across five code editors.

TabNine will continue to operate as a standalone service and its technology will be integrated into Codota’s existing platform with an aim to create a comprehensive AI platform for software authoring. With TabNine, Codata claims it will be the only service that fully supports nearly all popular programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, Python, C and HTML.

Code prediction applications that automatically provide developers with AI-driven code predictions within their native environment are a growing field, with the two companies already said to predict 25% of the code written by users. With the acquisition, Codota said, it expects that the percentage will further improve.

“Using AI for authoring code already translates into enormous development teams’ throughput gains, and that figure is only expected to increase as Codota’s user base expands and its product line and technology are upgraded,” Dror Weiss, co-founder and chief executive officer of Codota, said in a statement.

Codota is part of an emerging AI and machine learning segment with a particular focus on coding. As noted when it raised funding from Khosla Ventures in 2017, Codota uses machine learning models to scan the massive amounts of publicly accessible code in GitHub, Stack Overflow and other parts of the web for useful snippets. Another set of algorithms then analyzes the program that a user is writing to identify potential matches.

Codata uses a semantic approach with an emphasis on building a model for the meaning of code, but TabNine took a different approach in treating code textually. The two companies combined bring together both approaches for what is claimed to be better service.

“The TabNine approach has proven highly effective and the optimum lies in combining the two and this will be our challenge moving forward,” added Eran Yahav, co-founder and chief technology officer of Codota.

Photo: Codota