Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, two leading figures in Google’s Gemini AI model development, have announced their departure from Google to join the AI startup Anthropic [1, 2, 3]. Adler focused on Google’s AI programming projects, while Pritzel contributed to AI system training efforts [2, 3].
Their exits come amid ongoing talent movements in the AI field this month. Earlier in June, Noam Shazeer left Google for OpenAI, and John Jumper, a DeepMind director, also joined Anthropic [1, 3]. These shifts have raised investor concerns leading to Alphabet’s stock price decline on June 24. The company’s Class A shares closed at $345.29 and Class C shares at $345.04 amid market uncertainty over Google’s ability to retain AI talent [3].
Google has responded by restructuring its AI programming team to strengthen its capabilities and better compete with Anthropic and OpenAI in commercial AI applications [4]. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, addressed talent flows in the sector, saying, "顶尖AI实验室之间的人才流动非常频繁，谷歌仍吸引相当比例的顶尖人才，且拥有业界规模最大、覆盖最广的研究团队," noting that movement between top AI labs is frequent and Google still attracts a significant share of top AI talent [3].
Google’s recent acquisitions include a 2.7 billion USD acquihire deal for Character.AI, aiming to boost its AI development efforts [1].
The departure reports first emerged on June 23 and triggered market reactions by June 24 [2, 3]. Google is now focused on reorganizing and advancing its AI teams to maintain leadership in the competitive field [4].
