A public-record census of 102 publicly reported researcher moves between frontier and near-frontier AI labs, January 2025 through September 2026 (checked October 1, 2026). Meta absorbed 35 researchers in 2025 alone — mostly from OpenAI and Google DeepMind — while 2026 brought departures from Thinking Machines Lab and Google DeepMind. Eight researchers moved more than once; every distinct move is shown. Labs do not publish personnel logs, so this is a best-effort census, not an official roster.
| Researcher | Left | Joined | Month | Role | Corroboration | Source |
|---|
Best-effort public-record census of researcher moves between frontier and near-frontier AI labs: 102 rows, one per distinct origin–destination move, January 2025 – September 2026, checked October 1, 2026. “Month” is the earliest month the move was publicly reported or announced in the collected coverage when an exact start date was unavailable — read it as the public move month. Corroboration counts independent pages and hosts per move; 49 of 102 moves rest on a single host and are flagged, not dropped. Sources span 10 independent hosts; no single URL backs more than 5 rows. Meta Platforms/Meta Superintelligence shown as Meta; Google/Google DeepMind as Google DeepMind; Microsoft as Microsoft AI. Smaller destinations are grouped as “Other labs” in the chart lanes only; the table keeps exact names.