Is the AI talent war heating up?

Investing.com -- The battle for top artificial intelligence talent is intensifying, according to Barclays (LON:BARC), with recent data and high-profile moves pointing to escalating competition between tech giants and AI labs.

“Seven-figure retention bonuses and lengthy non-competes may not be enough to keep top talent,” Barclays analysts wrote, adding that “recent headlines suggesting much larger payouts (and acqui-hires) indicate the AI talent wars continue to escalate.”

The spotlight has reportedly intensified with Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, which brings founder Alexandr Wang to the company. 

Barclays noted this is just the latest in a string of moves by major players to lure top minds, often from rivals like Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), DeepMind, and OpenAI.

SignalFire’s 2025 State of Talent report, cited by Barclays, estimates that over 20% of employees at leading AI labs were poached from big tech firms. 

Google alone, excluding its DeepMind unit, is said to account for about a quarter of these transitions. “It’s no surprise to us that Google shows up as the largest exporter of AI talent… they were the largest and arguably the best AI lab pre-ChatGPT,” Barclays said.

Anthropic has emerged as a major talent magnet, with 80% employee retention from 2023–2024 compared to OpenAI’s 63%. “The outflow of employees from both OpenAI and DeepMind to Anthropic is surprising,” said the bank. 

They added that it “speaks to the huge talent that originated at Google and OpenAI in the early AI era.”

Barclays also cited reports that Meta (NASDAQ:META) has offered signing bonuses up to $100 million to OpenAI researchers and continues to poach talent for its “superintelligence” team led by Mark Zuckerberg.

“Net net, we think it’s fair to conclude that the AI talent ‘war’ is alive and well,” Barclays concluded.