Two senior artificial intelligence researchers who helped develop Google’s Gemini models are reportedly leaving the company to join Anthropic, adding to a series of high-profile departures from Google’s AI division.
Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel are expected to move to the Claude developer, according to Bloomberg. Neither Google nor Anthropic has publicly confirmed the appointments or disclosed what roles the researchers would hold.
Researchers Contributed to Gemini Development
Adler and Pritzel were regarded internally as important contributors to Google Gemini, according to the report. Adler worked on AI coding systems, while Pritzel contributed to the training of Google’s foundation models.
Their reported departures follow the exits of Noam Shazeer and John Jumper earlier in June. Both researchers moved from Google to companies developing competing frontier AI models.
Shazeer, who co-authored the influential Transformer research paper and later helped lead Gemini development, joined OpenAI. He had worked at Google for more than two decades, apart from several years spent building Character.AI.
Google brought Shazeer back in 2024 through a licensing agreement with Character.AI reportedly valued at approximately $2.7 billion. The arrangement gave Google access to the startup’s technology and brought Shazeer and several colleagues into its DeepMind organisation without a conventional acquisition.
Nobel Laureate John Jumper Joined Anthropic
John Jumper also left Google DeepMind for Anthropic. Jumper co-led the development of AlphaFold, which predicts three-dimensional protein structures from amino acid sequences.
Jumper and DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis received half of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on protein structure prediction. The other half went to University of Washington professor David Baker for computational protein design.
Jumper spent nearly nine years at DeepMind before announcing his departure. Anthropic has not provided details about his new position, although his research background suggests the company could expand its work involving AI and scientific discovery.
AI Companies Compete for Experienced Researchers
The departures come as Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, and other companies compete for a limited group of researchers experienced in developing large-scale AI systems. Compensation packages can include substantial equity alongside salaries and research resources.
Anthropic confidentially filed for a US initial public offering in June, while OpenAI has also filed for a potential listing. Equity in privately held companies approaching the public markets may give both firms another recruitment tool, although neither company has identified financial incentives as the reason for these appointments.
Google has not indicated that the departures will change its Gemini development plans. The company retains a large AI research organisation, but losing several prominent researchers within a short period gives its competitors additional experience in model training, coding systems, and scientific AI.
Featured image credits: Pngimg
For more stories like it, click the +Follow button at the top of this page to follow us.