Two more Google DeepMind researchers set to leave for Anthropic, Bloomberg reports

Google Alphabet Inc. ↘ 0.12% is poised to lose two more high-profile AI researchers to Anthropic, according to Bloomberg News, deepening a talent drain that has already rattled investors and sent the company's stock tumbling.tradingview+1

A Growing Exodus

Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, both senior researchers at Google DeepMind who contributed to foundational projects including AlphaFold and Gemini, are preparing to join Anthropic, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Adler, a principal research scientist who worked on AlphaFold, Gemini pretraining, and the Veo video model, and Pritzel, a senior staff research scientist with over a decade at DeepMind, would become the latest in a string of departures that began last week.linkedin+3

The exits follow two announcements that shook investors. On June 18, Noam Shazeer, Google's vice president of engineering and co-lead of its Gemini models, revealed he was leaving for OpenAI — less than two years after Google paid roughly $2.7 billion to bring him back through a deal with his startup Character.AI. Two days later, Nobel laureate John Jumper, who led the AlphaFold project at Google DeepMind, announced on X that he would depart after nearly nine years to join Anthropic.reuters+3

Investor Fallout

The back-to-back departures triggered Alphabet's worst trading day in over a year. Shares fell roughly 5% on Monday, June 22, underperforming the broader Nasdaq and other major technology companies. Citizens analyst Andrew Boone flagged AI talent retention as a risk, reiterating a market outperform rating but noting the growing concern.finance.yahoo+2

The timing proved awkward: on the same day Alphabet was sliding, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced the company would replace Verizon Communications ↗ 0.54% in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, effective June 29.beincrypto

Can Google Hold the Line?

Fortune reported that Google DeepMind's models no longer hold top positions on key AI leaderboards, and that the lab's pace of releases has fallen behind both Anthropic and OpenAI. Axios described the situation as "AI lab musical chairs" hitting Google the hardest, noting that at least three named senior researchers have departed for rivals in 2026 alone.fortune+1

Jumper, in his departure post on X, struck a gracious tone: "I am incredibly grateful for my time at GDM," he wrote, crediting DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis for giving him the chance to lead AlphaFold. Shazeer similarly called his decision to leave "a difficult one," praising the team he had built at Google.x+1

For Google, the question is no longer whether individual departures matter, but whether the pattern signals something structural about its ability to compete for the researchers shaping the next generation of AI.