A public-reporting census of 51 documented moves of named researchers between frontier AI labs, January 2025 through August 27, 2026. Each ribbon below is a lab-to-lab corridor; each drifting dot is one researcher on the move. This shows documented moves found in public sources, not a complete picture of private personnel data.
Ribbon width = number of documented moves in the corridor · hover a lab or ribbon for names and totals
Colour marks the destination lab: Meta Anthropic OpenAI Google DeepMind Thinking Machines Lab xAI
Documented moves, January 2025 – August 2026 · months with no documented move shown empty
One row per move · type to filter by researcher, lab, or note
| Month | Researcher | From → to | Note | Source |
|---|
Method: public-reporting census of 51 direct moves by named technical AI researchers, research engineers, research leaders, and technical founders between organizations developing frontier general-purpose models, January 2025 through August 27, 2026. Months are joining or public-announcement months, whichever the source establishes. Meta AI/FAIR/MSL counted as Meta; Google's frontier model research counted as Google DeepMind. Excludes university-to-lab moves, non-frontier big-tech roles, internal reorganizations, investors and recruiters, and departures with no known frontier-lab destination. Some rows rely on secondary reporting; unreported moves may exist. Full source links kept per row; nothing was cut for space.