Two prominent AI researchers, Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, are departing Google to join Anthropic, according to Bloomberg. Both played significant roles in the development of Google’s Gemini model. TechCrunch attempted to reach out to Google for comment. These departures highlight a growing exodus of top AI talent from the company, raising concerns about its ability to retain leading experts in the field.
The trend of AI researchers leaving Google for rival firms has gained momentum. Last week, Noam Shazeer, a legendary AI researcher, announced he was leaving Google for OpenAI. Shazeer had been with Google since 2000, except for a three-year period when he founded his chatbot startup, Character.AI, which Google acquired for $2.7 billion to bring him back to work on Gemini. Just days after Shazeer’s announcement, John Jumper, director of Google DeepMind, also announced his departure for Anthropic.
Jumper, along with 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. As OpenAI and Anthropic prepare to go public, the companies are well-positioned to attract top AI talent with the promise of equity.
Source: techcrunch
