AI NewsAI researchers continue to leave Google for its rivals

AI researchers continue to leave Google for its rivals

4:09 AM IST · June 25, 2026

Top AI researchers Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel are leaving Google for Anthropic, according toBloomberg. Per the report, Adler and Pritzel played key roles in the development of Google’s Gemini model. TechCrunch reached out to Google for comment. These departures are part of a concerning trend for Google. Last week, legendary AI researcherNoam Shazeerannouncedthat he wasleaving Googlefor OpenAI. Shazeer had been at Google since 2000, save for the three years he spent building hiscontroversialchatbot startup, Character.AI (which Google effectively acqui-hired for $2.7 billion, in part to bring Shazeer back to work on Gemini). Just days after Shazeer made his announcement, Google DeepMind directorJohn Jumpersaid he was leaving Google for Anthropic. Alongside DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Jumper won the 2024Nobel Prize in Chemistryfor his work on AlphaFold, which can predict 3D protein structures from animo acid sequences. As OpenAI and Anthropicprepare to go public, this trend could continue — it’s a great time for the companies to recruit top AI talent with a promise of equity.