Microsoft poaches 24 AI stars from Google to supercharge Copilot — despite DeepMind’s ironclad noncompete clauses and lavish year-long PTO

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In recent times, the rivalry among companies developing generative AI has grown more intense. Just within the last several weeks, organizations such as Meta have established Meta Superintelligence Labs, aiming to hold their ground against tech giants like Google and OpenAI in this rapidly changing field.

As an analyst, it seems increasingly clear that talent plays a pivotal role in a company’s success in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This observation could potentially explain Meta’s aggressive recruitment strategy, which appears to be centered on attracting top talents from OpenAI, offering signing bonuses up to $100 million and one-year compensation packages.

Facebook’s parent company purchased Scale AI for $14.8 billion and tapped Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, to oversee operations within its new AI division. This action appeared to stir some discontent at OpenAI, causing the company to require employees to take a week-long break while they adjusted their compensation plans and sought innovative methods to recognize and reward their top-performing staff members.

It appears that Microsoft is now mirroring Meta’s moves, having recently recruited around 24 employees from Google‘s DeepMind AI lab (as reported by Financial Times). This news follows approximately a year and some months since Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection, joined Microsoft to oversee operations in its newly established AI department.

Among the significant new additions to Microsoft’s AI team are individuals like Amar Subramanya, who spent 16 years working at Google DeepMind AI Lab as a Vice President of Engineering on the Gemini project before transitioning to Microsoft in June, where he now holds the position of Corporate Vice President within its AI division.

While announcing his new role at Microsoft on LinkedIn, Subramanya indicated:

In just my first week at this new position, I’ve already felt a strong surge of energy. The atmosphere here is unique, with a minimal emphasis on ego yet brimming with determination. It shares similarities with the most appealing aspects of a startup: it moves quickly, fosters collaboration, and has a keen focus on developing advanced, cutting-edge foundation models to create exceptional AI-driven products like Microsoft Copilot.

Additionally, Adam Sadovsky recently joined Microsoft in June, following nearly 18 years at Google where he served as a software engineer and senior director at DeepMind. Now, Sadovsky holds the position of Corporate Vice President within Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence department.

It’s intriguing to notice Microsoft hiring talent from Google DeepMind, particularly given past reports suggesting that Microsoft employs tough noncompete agreements and extended periods of vacation time to deter employees from moving to competing companies.

Microsoft has a major Copilot problem

It’s plausible that Microsoft might be luring top Artificial Intelligence experts away from Google DeepMind to strengthen its own progress in an industry that’s constantly changing. Intriguingly, Microsoft recently let go of over 9,000 employees from their workforce. This step appears to have been aimed at making more funds available for investment in AI infrastructure, keeping up with the rapid advancements in the field, and potentially recruiting AI talent from competing companies.

Microsoft’s substantial collaboration with OpenAI allows them special privileges to utilize its advanced AI models within their technology framework. Yet, this friendly tech relationship could face challenges as OpenAI is under significant pressure from investors to transition into a profit-driven company or else risk losing funding, external control, and potential hostile acquisitions.

OpenAI accuses Microsoft of resisting the commercial development of their partnership, while Microsoft has signaled a readiness to continue the partnership until 2030 but may choose to withdraw if necessary. Meanwhile, there’s speculation that OpenAI might declare the arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) ahead of schedule to end its association with Microsoft.

Although Microsoft possesses access to OpenAI’s advanced technology and AI models, the performance of Copilot falls short compared to the achievements of ChatGPT. The main criticism within Microsoft’s AI department is that Copilot doesn’t measure up to ChatGPT, but Microsoft has pointed fingers at the suboptimal prompt engineering skills instead. To address this issue, Microsoft established Copilot Academy as a solution. Moreover, Microsoft has also suggested that users may not be fully utilizing Copilot properly.

It appears that there may be some hesitation among Microsoft employees about Copilot, with a senior executive labeling its AI tools as “trivial” or “gimmicky.” The report also revealed that Microsoft relies on assistance from external vendors to ensure Copilot can provide value across its technology infrastructure, including Microsoft 365.

In May, Jeff Taper, head of Microsoft Teams, acknowledged that Copilot and ChatGPT are essentially the same, but Copilot offers stronger security and a superior user experience. Yet, it appears that corporations lean more towards ChatGPT rather than Copilot due to the fact that“OpenAI has done an exceptional job at making their product enjoyable to use.”

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2025-07-23 22:09