ONE BIG THINGGoogle DeepMind is losing the AI talent war to rivals
Google DeepMind was once the leading destination for AI research talent—especially in Europe—but it is now on the losing side of that contest, according to staffing data exclusively shared with Fortune’s Bea Nolan. A new analysis from Zeki Data, a U.K.-based data intelligence company, shows that where OpenAI and Anthropic are making gains in the AI talent market, Google DeepMind and, to some extent, Meta are stumbling.
The new data from Zeki suggests DeepMind’s share of research and advanced-engineering hires across Europe, the Middle East and Africa fell from 49% in 2022–23 to 18.6% in 2025–26—the sharpest market-share drop that Zeki recorded for a major AI lab in any region.
“They had the crown in Europe forever, and then it started to erode from a very high base,” Tom Hurd, cofounder of Zeki Data, told Fortune. “The likes of Microsoft AI Superintelligence and Meta Superintelligence are eating into their market share, and then there’s OpenAI and Anthropic on the side.”
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