AI talent war heats up in Europe
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[March 11, 2024] By
Martin Coulter
LONDON (Reuters) - An influx of artificial intelligence (AI) startups is
heating up the battle for technical talent in Europe, leaving companies
like Google DeepMind to choose between paying big or losing out on the
region's best minds.
The runaway success of OpenAI's ChatGPT has energised investors, who
have been pouring money into promising AI startups, eager to uncover the
next overnight success.
Riding the investment wave, a crop of foreign AI firms - including
Canada's Cohere and U.S.-based Anthropic and OpenAI - opened offices in
Europe last year, adding to pressure on tech companies already trying to
attract and retain talent in the region.
Founded in 2010 and acquired by Google in 2014, London-based DeepMind
made its name applying AI to everything from board games to structural
biology.
Now the firm faces a host of well-funded rivals flooding its territory,
while a growing number of its employees have quit to launch their own
ventures.
Recent high-profile exits include co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, who left
to set up California-based Inflection AI alongside LinkedIn billionaire
Reid Hoffman, and research scientist Arthur Mensch, now CEO of Mistral
AI. Both companies have received multi-billion dollar valuations in the
short time they have been active.
In an apparent effort to discourage staff from joining other companies
or starting their own, DeepMind gave a handful of senior researchers
access to restricted stock, worth millions of dollars, earlier this
year, according to a source familiar with the matter.
"It's a competitive space for sure," a DeepMind spokesperson told
Reuters, adding that the company "continues to do well in attracting and
nurturing talent".
CLOSING THE GAP
According to executive search firm Avery Fairbank, there has been an
"exponential increase" in pay for C-suite staff at AI companies in
Britain over the last year.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Mar/11/images/ads/current/ldn_sda_NILA_010924.png)
"The entrance of foreign AI giants such as Anthropic and Cohere into
London's market will further escalate the competition for AI talent,"
said Charlie Fairbank, the firm's managing director.
Executives on base salaries of around 350,000 pounds have seen pay
packets jump between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds, he said.
Cohere, which designs in-house chatbots and other tools for its
customers, hired Phil Blunsom, a lead researcher at DeepMind for seven
years, as its chief scientist in 2022.
Sebastian Ruder also joined Cohere from DeepMind in January.
"It's rare to find a company building a massive business from scratch,
with many of the leading minds in the industry," he told Reuters. "When
that kind of chance comes along, you take it."
Ruder declined to comment when asked about his salary.
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![](../images/031124PIX/busine50.jpg)
Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, reacts at the
2024 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain February 26,
2024. REUTERS/Albert Gea/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Mar/11/images/ads/current/xamis_lda_ANIMAL_2024.png)
Ekaterina Almasque, a general partner at venture capital firm
OpenOcean, said DeepMind was no longer the "distant leader in the
field".
"All these companies are competing for the same pool of talent, and
with the AI skills shortage, that's increasingly more of a pond than
an ocean."
Suleyman recently began recruiting London-based technical staff for
Inflection AI, while Mensch's Mistral has fast become one of the
buzziest startups on the continent, raising $415 million in venture
funding in December.
Mistral declined to comment and Inflection did not respond to a
request for comment.
MORE INFLUENCE
OpenAI opened its first international office in London last year
followed swiftly by a second in Dublin - "just the first steps",
said the company's Vice President of People Diane Yoon, as it plans
to continue expanding into other countries.
Cohere opened its UK office last year and CEO Aidan Gomez told
Reuters he is now splitting his time between his native Toronto and
London, where the firm plans to double its headcount to 50.
"We go where the talent is, and there's a lot in London and across
Europe," Gomez said.
The talent war means workers are increasingly well-placed to make
demands of their prospective employers.
London-based AI audio firm ElevenLabs is offering new hires stock
options, generous salaries and fully-remote working, although most
advertised roles stipulate that employees should be based in Europe.
Having recently raised $80 million in funding from venture capital
firms like a16z and Sequoia, the company told Reuters it would soon
double its total headcount to 100.
Paris-based startup Bioptimus, also founded by former DeepMind
staff, raised $35 million in February.
Thomas Clozel, an early investor in the company said startups were
looking to recruit talent from Big Tech like Google by offering them
more influence over a company's direction.
"Google is one of the best at what it does and produces some of the
best talent," he said. "At a smaller startup, you have a unique
opportunity to remain true to the work you are passionate about and
have a stake in the success of the company."
(Reporting by Martin Coulter; Editing by Matt Scuffham, Kirsten
Donovan)
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