Microsoft Recruits 24 DeepMind AI Experts to Accelerate Consumer Product Innovation

Microsoft, under AI head Mustafa Suleyman—a co-founder of Google's DeepMind—is aggressively recruiting top AI talent from DeepMind by promoting a startup-like, less bureaucratic work environment and offering higher pay than DeepMind, though not as high as Meta's. Suleyman has personally recruited at least 24 staffers recently, including notable hires such as former DeepMind executive Amar Subramanya and distinguished engineer Adam Sadovsky, to help develop consumer-facing AI products like Microsoft's Copilot chatbot. This talent poaching is part of a broader competitive landscape where tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and Meta are investing billions in infrastructure and aggressively pursuing AI innovation. Microsoft’s AI team operates somewhat independently from the main company, working out of Mountain View and London, which supports a leaner, more agile culture that appeals to those frustrated by DeepMind’s growing bureaucracy and hierarchical setup. The focus on embedding AI tools like Copilot more deeply into products such as the Edge browser reflects Microsoft’s commitment to advancing its AI capabilities to rival competitors like OpenAI. This recruitment battle underscores the intense scramble for AI dominance among leading technology companies.