Microsoft Corporation MSFT has reportedly been aggressively expanding its artificial intelligence team by poaching top engineers from Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL Google DeepMind.
What Happened: Over the past few months, Microsoft has hired roughly two dozen employees from Alphabet’s DeepMind, according to a CNBC report citing a person familiar with the matter.
Among the high-profile hires is Amar Subramanya, a 16-year Google veteran who helped develop the Gemini assistant. He announced this week on LinkedIn that he’s joined Microsoft AI as a corporate vice president.
In June, Adam Sadovsky, a distinguished software engineer with nearly 18 years at Google, made a similar jump to become a CVP at Microsoft.
Sonal Gupta, formerly an engineering lead at DeepMind, also joined Microsoft AI this month. In May, Jonas Rothfuss, a former research scientist at DeepMind, made the move as well.
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The hires are joining the Microsoft AI group, led by Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of DeepMind who previously ran the AI startup Inflection.
Why It’s Important: As Microsoft ramps up its Copilot products and Bing AI capabilities, securing elite talent has become a critical front in the battle for AI dominance, the report said.
The company’s aggressive hiring spree also comes despite its announcement of 9,000 layoffs globally earlier this month.
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The DeepMind defection spree also follows reports that Meta Platforms, Inc. META has been offering OpenAI staff up to $100 million in signing bonuses amid fierce competition for AI expertise.
Meanwhile, Google has hired the CEO and staff of AI startup Windsurf in a $2.4 billion deal.
Price Action: Microsoft shares are up 20.71% so far this year and have risen 14.07% over the past 12 months. On Tuesday, the stock slipped 0.94% during regular trading, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings show that MSFT maintains strong momentum across short, medium, and long-term periods. However, despite this solid momentum, the stock’s value score remains relatively weak. Additional performance details are available here.
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