Meta pulled 13 of 24 confirmed frontier-lab moves — then the tide turned

Asked:

“Which AI researchers moved between frontier labs since 2025? For each move list the researcher, the lab they left, where they went and the month.”

This is a conservative scan of confirmed public moves found — not all moves. It covers 24 direct moves of technical AI researchers between frontier labs from January 2025 through September 5, 2026, drawn from single-sourced high-confidence public reporting across nine independent source hosts. Eleven of the 24 moves cluster in June–July 2025, Meta's recruitment surge; a second cluster of five comes in January 2026.

Colour = destination lab:Meta Superintelligence LabsOpenAIAnthropic
OpenAI was the biggest single donor to Meta: 9 researchers left OpenAI for Meta Superintelligence Labs between June and September 2025 — fortune.com
The flow reversed in August 2025: four researchers left Meta Superintelligence Labs for OpenAI or Anthropic — businessinsider.com
Thinking Machines Lab lost five researchers in total, four of them to OpenAI in January 2026, including co-founder Barret Zoph — wired.com
Google DeepMind's three gold-medal researchers all went to Meta in July 2025 — markets.businessinsider.com

All 24 confirmed moves, by month

MonthResearcherLeftJoinedSource

Method: 24 confirmed direct moves of technical AI researchers or technical research leaders between frontier labs, January 2025 – September 5, 2026, from a high-confidence scan of established public technology and business reporting (nine independent hosts; no single URL supports more than 12.5% of rows). "Month" is the best-supported month the move was announced or reported, not payroll date. Lab names are normalized (e.g. Meta AI / Meta Platforms → Meta Superintelligence Labs). Quiet or unannounced moves and weakly sourced reports were excluded; this is confirmed public moves found, not all moves.

This report was generated automatically by Keenable SELECT at a user's request, from publicly available web sources linked herein. Keenable does not review, verify, or endorse its contents and makes no representation as to accuracy, completeness, or timeliness; AI-based extraction may contain errors. Nothing in this report is investment, legal, financial, or other professional advice. All trademarks and referenced content remain the property of their respective owners; no affiliation or endorsement is implied. To report an error, rights concern, or request removal: legal@keenable.ai.

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