Microsoft has reportedly hired more than 20 employees from Google’s DeepMind AI research lab, as the competition among tech giants to recruit AI specialists escalates.
Among the new hires, Amar Subramanya, who previously led engineering for Google’s Gemini chatbot, announced his move to Microsoft via a LinkedIn post. He joined Microsoft AI as corporate vice-president.
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According to a Financial Times (FT) report, Subramanya is now part of a group of former DeepMind professionals at Microsoft, which includes engineering lead Sonal Gupta, software engineer Adam Sadovsky, and product manager Tim Frank.
Microsoft has attracted at least 24 DeepMind staff members over the past six months, the publication added. Microsoft’s AI team is currently focusing on projects such as the Copilot assistant and the Bing search engine.
This wave of hiring reflects a broader industry trend where tech companies are actively seeking top AI researchers and engineers from competitors, contributing to an increase in salaries within the sector.
The recruitment activities between Microsoft and Google are particularly intense, partly due to Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, now overseeing Microsoft’s consumer AI strategy.
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By GlobalDataSuleyman previously brought in Dominic King and Christopher Kelly from DeepMind to lead a new AI health unit at Microsoft, which has developed a system reported to outperform human doctors in diagnosing complex medical conditions.
The departure of Subramanya from Google coincided with that of Mat Velloso, another DeepMind alumnus who has since joined Meta.
Velloso is associated with Facebook-parent’s new initiative, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), which aims to develop artificial general intelligence. Meta has invested $15bn in data-labelling start-up Scale AI and appointed its co-founder Alexandr Wang to lead this initiative.
Recently, Meta also recruited Ruoming Pang, a former top AI executive from Apple.
Despite these departures, a source close to DeepMind told FT that the company’s attrition rates remain below the industry average. Furthermore, DeepMind has managed to recruit a comparable number of researchers from Microsoft.
