Top AI researchers Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel are leaving Google for Anthropic, according to Bloomberg. Both men played key roles in the development of Google’s Gemini model. This departure follows Noam Shazeer’s announcement last week that he is moving to OpenAI after working at Google since 2000. Shazeer previously led Character.AI before Google acquired the startup for $2.7 billion to bring him back to Gemini work. Just days after Shazeer’s news, John Jumper, director of Google DeepMind, also announced he is joining Anthropic. Jumper and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on AlphaFold, which predicts 3D protein structures from amino acid sequences.
These moves highlight a pattern where top talent is shifting to rivals as OpenAI and Anthropic prepare for public listings. The companies can offer equity packages that may appeal more to senior researchers than current compensation structures at Google. This trend suggests Google faces challenges retaining its most experienced staff despite its internal research output. The loss of key figures like Adler, Pritzel, Shazeer, and Jumper reduces internal capacity for future model development.
- Adler and Pritzel joined Anthropic specifically for the Gemini project.
- Shazeer spent three years building Character.AI before returning to Google.
- Jumper and Hassabis share a 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
