Why Top AI Researchers Are Leaving Google for Anthropic and OpenAI

Competition for AI talent shows little sign of slowing down, and headlines about top researchers leaving major tech companies for Anthropic are once again drawing attention to the industry's escalating talent war. 

According to Bloomberg, Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, two researchers who played key roles in developing Google Gemini AI model, are leaving the company to join Anthropic. Their departures add to a growing list of high-profile AI researchers who have recently left Google for rival labs. 

Last week, veteran AI researcher Noam Shazeer announced he was leaving Google for OpenAIthere are. Days later, Google DeepMind director John Jumper, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AlphaFold, revealed plans to join Anthropic. 

If these departures sound familiar, it is because the industry has witnessed a similar pattern before. Earlier this year, OpenAI lost senior employees to Anthropic following controversy surrounding its agreement with the United States Department of War to deploy AI models in classified government settings.