As the competition in the AI sector intensifies, the migration of specialists from one tech giant to another has started to pick pace. In a fresh development, two key AI researchers from Google have decided to pivot to Anthropic — intensifying the Claude vs Gemini contention.
Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, touted among the core architects behind Google’s Gemini AI model, are reportedly set to join Anthropic ahead of the company’s IPO which is expected later this year.
As per Adler’s X bio, he was a research scientist for Google DeepMind and Gemini’s AlphaFold AI system and served at the tech giant for 12 years. Pritzel, meanwhile, served at multiple roles in Google during his seven-year journey, with his most recent position being a senior staff research scientist at DeepMind, an AI research lab incubated by Google.
As of press time, neither have confirmed the reports of transitioning from Google to Anthropic.
With this move Anthropic will be hoping to build on its team of builders and coders to spearhead the development of its foundational system-training as its LLMs like Claude and Mythos, among others, continue to advance.
These high profile departures from Google could leave the tech giant at a fragile state as it keeps trying to match pace with AI-native companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.
On Wednesday, Arthur Conmy from Google Deepmind’s AI safety research and engineering team also announced his move to Anthropic.
Last week, another DeepMind team member John Jumper announced that he was joining Anthropic after a nine-year stint at Google.
Earlier this month, Anthropic submitted a confidential Form S-1 filing with the SEC for a preliminary review. The company also recently raised a $65 billion in a Series H funding round led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital — hitting the valuation of $965 billion. Its IPO could soon take the company into the elite trillion-dollar club with Elon Musk-led SpaceX.
Along with Anthropic, OpenAI has also taken its first steps into the IPO arena with its own filing submitted with the SEC earlier this month. These high-stakes IPO plans of top AI firms can be credited with triggering this tech talent tug of war among Silicon Valley giants.
