Microsoft is following Meta's strategy by actively recruiting AI researchers from rival companies. According to reports, the tech giant has hired approximately 20 employees from Google's DeepMind division in recent months. These former Google staff will join Microsoft's AI team responsible for developing consumer AI products including Copilot, Bing AI, and other generative AI experiences, as revealed by an anonymous source to CNBC.

The research lab currently led by Mustafa Suleyman—who co-founded DeepMind before its 2014 acquisition by Google and left the company in 2022—has seen additional key additions:

• Amal Subramanian: After 16 years at Google including five as VP of Engineering focused on Gemini, now serves as Corporate Vice President at Microsoft AI.
• Adam Sadowski: With 17 years at Google as software engineer and senior director, now holds a Corporate VP position at Microsoft AI.
• Sonal Gupta: Previously spent one year at Google DeepMind and six years as senior engineering manager at Meta, now serves as technical staff at Microsoft AI.
• Jonas Roesfs: Former Google DeepMind employee now serving as technical staff at Microsoft AI.

This recruitment drive follows Microsoft's recent workforce reduction that eliminated around 9,000 positions across multiple departments including sales and Xbox gaming. This comes after over 6,000 layoffs earlier this month to reduce management layers in May.

Competition is driving market transformation

Notably, Microsoft has invested billions in data centers and AI development to recoup these investments. The company reports using generative AI to handle up to 30% of coding projects. However, aggressive AI infrastructure and talent investments aren't unique to Microsoft. All major tech companies are fiercely competing for AI dominance, as control of the most powerful and widely adopted AI platforms will shape technological futures and generate economic and geopolitical influence. Google recently secured a $2.4 billion deal with AI coding startup Windsurf, including bringing their CEO and key team members into DeepMind.

Mark Zuckerberg established Meta's new AI research team called Meta Superintelligence Lab, reportedly offering $100 million signing bonuses to entice engineers from competitors like OpenAI and Google DeepMind. Meta invested $14.3 billion in data labeling startup Scale AI and recruited its CEO to lead a new department. Reports indicate Zuckerberg also secured Apple's top AI executive Peng Zhao Ming with a compensation package exceeding $200 million while spending tens of billions constructing two large data centers. Alongside investments in custom chips, data centers, and promising startups, tech giants are competing to demonstrate model capabilities to attract top AI researchers.

Both Google DeepMind and OpenAI claim their latest AI systems achieve gold medal-level performance in the International Mathematical Olympiad. While Microsoft aggressively builds its internal AI team, it hasn't abandoned collaboration with OpenAI. In fact, the company recently sought increased equity stakes in Sam Altman's startup.