Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has reportedly been aggressively expanding its artificial intelligence team by poaching top engineers from Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ: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.
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.
The DeepMind defection spree also follows reports that Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: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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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
