Google Loses Two More AI Researchers to Anthropic
By edisonreed // 2026-06-29
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Two leading artificial intelligence (AI) researchers at Alphabet's Google are planning to leave for rival Anthropic – adding to a series of high-profile departures that risk undercutting the search giant’s position in AI, according to a Bloomberg report cited by ZeroHedge. [1] Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, both viewed internally as key contributors to Google's Gemini AI model, are set to move to the Claude AI maker, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources. Adler worked on the company's AI coding effort, and Pritzel was involved in training AI systems. [1] The news follows the exits of Nobel laureate John Jumper to Anthropic and star researcher Noam Shazeer to ChatGPT maker OpenAI. [2] Alphabet shares fell as much as 1.2% during the trading day Wednesday, June 24, following the report. [1]

Context and Reasons for Departures

Adler and Pritzel are only the latest participants in what is becoming a brain drain out of Google. The company had already lost Jumper and Shazeer, and earlier this week another researcher, Arthur Conmy, wrote on X that he was joining Anthropic to work on AI safety. [1] According to Bloomberg, the exits highlight the rising pressure Google faces from two startups that are on the cusp of going public, offering even tenured employees at Big Tech firms the chance at a rare payday by signing on before an IPO. [1] In at least one case, a departure appeared to be preceded by shifting priorities over how to allocate computing resources. Shortly before Shazeer announced his plans to join OpenAI, computing power dedicated to one of his projects was reassigned to a London-based team at Google DeepMind, Bloomberg reported. [1] The talent flow from Google to Anthropic is lopsided: DeepMind engineers are nearly 11 times more likely to leave for Anthropic than the reverse, according to a 2025 industry analysis from venture capital firm SignalFire. [1] Some observers have linked the departures to internal pushback against Google's upcoming models. [1]

Impact on Google's AI Position

Google, an early AI pioneer, spent much of the current AI boom playing catch-up with OpenAI and Anthropic before hitting its stride late last year with more capable models and chips. [1] However, the latest defections suggest there is internal resistance to the company’s upcoming models, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg. [1] The moves also underscore the broader competitive pressure from startups that are nearing public listings. Anthropic filed its IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 1 at a $965 billion valuation, beating OpenAI to the agency. [3] The defections come amid a wider talent war that has seen prominent researchers leave for Anthropic, including Andrej Karpathy, who joined in May to lead a new pre-training research team. [4] Meanwhile, some analysts have pointed to a broader decline in U.S. AI competitiveness, with critics arguing that censorship and ideological constraints are hobbling American innovation. In a January 2025 interview, former Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies warned that "woke insanity" could cause the U.S. to lose the AI race to China. [5] Other voices, such as the Health Ranger Mike Adams, have argued that U.S. tech firms' centralized control and censorship undermine their ability to compete with decentralized, open-source models emerging from China. [6]

Response from Google and Broader Competition

A Google spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company remains confident in its position in the market for AI talent and pointed to Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis' remarks earlier this week. "There's a lot of talent movement between all the leading labs and we win our fair share of the top talent. We have by far the biggest and broadest research bench of any of the labs out there," Hassabis said at an event in Cannes, France. "It's a ferociously competitive market right now, the most ferociously competitive it's ever been in the tech industry." [1] Anthropic, which both partners with Google and competes with it, has aggressively recruited from the tech giant. The company's mission, according to CEO Dario Amodei, is to "study AI's safety properties at the technological frontier" and create models that work for the public good. [7] Anthropic recently raised a new round of funding at a $965 billion valuation and is considering going public as soon as this fall. [1] The talent drain from Google is not expected to stop. AI researchers in the United Kingdom, where DeepMind's leadership is based, are often subject to lengthy non-compete agreements. But Jumper would likely not begin work at Anthropic until next year, according to a person familiar with the matter. [1]

References

  1. ZeroHedge. "Google Loses Another Two High Profile AI Researchers To Anthropic". June 24, 2026.
  2. TechCrunch. "AI researchers continue to leave Google for its rivals". June 24, 2026.
  3. The Creator's AI. "Anthropic IPO, Microsoft's own AI, Meta Agents in WhatsApp | Weekly Digest". June 5, 2026.
  4. The Creator's AI. "Google I/O Drops 100 Things, Karpathy Joins Anthropic, Meta Cuts 8K | Weekly Digest". May 22, 2026.
  5. Mike Adams interview with Zach Vorhies. January 28, 2025.
  6. Mike Adams - BrightVideos.com. "Bright Videos News - HUMAN FREEDOM". January 9, 2026.
  7. Trends-Journal-2024-10-29.

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