Meta continues to poach top AI talent from OpenAI

Today’s Highlights:

📰 News: Meta continues to poach top AI talent from OpenAI and other AI rivals + Google releases Gemma 3n model

💰 Funding: OpenAI and Meta continue to expand AI capabilities through acquisitions 

⚡️ Top News Stories:

1. Meta has now poached eight top researchers from OpenAI — including contributors to critical reasoning models like o1 and GPT 4.1 — with CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally spearheading a stealth recruitment campaign as part of the company’s high-stakes superintelligence initiative.

• Meta has unified its AI operations into a new unit called “Meta Superintelligence Labs” under the leadership of Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman, in a bold move to dominate the AGI race through high-profile hires, acquisitions, and a $14.3Bn investment in Scale AI.

• Meta is offering multimillion-dollar pay packages — primarily structured through equity and performance incentives — to lure AI researchers to its new superintelligence unit, but contrary to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s claims, these are not blanket $100M signing bonuses, according to Meta executives and newly hired researchers.

• In response to Meta luring away key researchers, OpenAI's leadership — including CEO Sam Altman — is recalibrating compensation and launching new retention strategies, as Chief Research Officer Mark Chen equated the departures to a personal violation and vowed stronger internal support.

2. Google introduces Gemma 3n, a powerful multimodal AI model designed specifically for mobile and edge devices, supporting text, image, video, and audio inputs with outputs in text, all while maintaining performance levels previously only seen in cloud-based models.

3. Cursor, the AI coding platform from Anysphere, has launched a web app that allows users to assign and manage coding tasks via browser using autonomous background agents, a move that builds on its Slack integration and follows rapid enterprise adoption.

4. Congress is considering a provision in the GOP-backed budget bill that would bar states and local governments from regulating AI for five years, reduced from an original ten-year proposal, in an effort to avoid a regulatory "patchwork," a move backed by industry giants like OpenAI but fiercely opposed by bipartisan lawmakers, consumer advocates, and tech rivals like Anthropic, who argue it strips states of vital oversight powers and ties federal broadband funding to compliance. 

5. Google unveiled over 30 new AI tools at ISTE 2025 edtech conference, including a custom Gemini app, chatbots, and multimedia features aimed at transforming education through personalized learning, AI-supported teaching, and secure, streamlined classroom management.

6. OpenAI is now renting Google's TPUs through Google Cloud in a bid to reduce inference costs and diversify beyond Nvidia GPUs and Microsoft Azure, marking its first significant use of a rival’s chips while Google cautiously limits access to its most powerful hardware.

7. Microsoft has unveiled the "AI Diagnostic Orchestrator" (MAI-DxO), a new AI system that simulates a team of virtual doctors working together to diagnose complex medical cases, claiming to outperform humans 4x on complex cases from medical journals—an early but striking milestone toward AI-powered clinical tools.

8. Anthropic has launched the Economic Futures Program a new initiative aimed at studying the impact of AI on labor markets and the global economy, intending to produce evidence-based policy proposals and foster dialogue among experts, policymakers, and institutions, distinguishing itself from competitors like OpenAI by focusing on potential job losses, fiscal shifts, and new economic paradigms rather than merely promoting AI adoption.

9. Mira Murati’s secretive startup Thinking Machines Lab is disrupting the AI talent market by paying base salaries up to $500,000 and recruiting former OpenAI heavyweights, signaling an aggressive push to rival top AI labs even before launching any products.

10. Facing delays with its in-house “LLM Siri” project, Apple is now in talks with OpenAI and Anthropic to potentially power a revamped version of Siri using their AI models on Apple’s own cloud infrastructure.

💰 Top Funding News:

1.  OpenAI has absorbed the team from e-commerce recommendation startup Crossing Minds, whose privacy-focused personalization technology will now bolster OpenAI’s broader AI research and agent initiatives.

• Crossing Minds had raised over $13.5M from investors like Index Ventures, Shopify, and Radical Ventures, and worked with companies including Intuit, Anthropic, Udacity, and Chanel.

2. Legal software company Clio is acquiring law data powerhouse vLex for $1Bn, gaining access to its rich legal document database and AI model Vincent to expand beyond firm management tools into the actual practice of law.

3. Meta is reportedly negotiating to acquire Play AI, a voice-cloning startup known for its speech replication tech, in a bid to bolster Meta AI's audio capabilities and integrate voice tools into its growing creator and chatbot platforms.

• Play AI has raised $23.5M from investors like 500 Global, Kindred Ventures, Race Capital, and Soma Capital, per Crunchbase data.

4. Campfire, which offers an LLM-powered ERP platform that automates financial processes for startups, raised a $35M Series A led by Accel, with participation from Foundation Capital, Y Combinator, Capital 49, and Dan Kang.

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