Report: Google pays AI employees to do nothing for a year

Google is reportedly paying some AI developers to do nothing for a year rather than move to the competition.

The battle for AI talent is so fierce that, according to a report by Business Insider, Google's DeepMind prefers to pay employees in the UK to take a year's paid time off rather than let them work for competitors such as OpenAI or Meta.

Some Google DeepMind employees in the UK are subject to strict non-compete clauses. These prevent them from working for a rival company for up to a year after leaving Google. This is reported by former DeepMind employees.

According to the report, DeepMind continues to pay employees who are subject to these agreements their salary while they are no longer working for the company. The duration of the non-compete clause depends on several factors, such as the length of service and how important the person is to the company.

In labor law, this further payment is called compensation for non-competition and is – a prerequisite for a legally binding non-competition clause, at least under German law.

Up to 12 months paid time off

Two of the former employees said that six-month non-compete clauses are common among DeepMind employees. This also applies to individual employees who worked on Google's Gemini AI models. Senior researchers had even received one-year agreements. Google described the rules to Business Insider as standard market practice.

The issue of non-compete agreements was brought to public attention in late March when Nando de Freitas, vice president of Microsoft AI and former DeepMind director, posted a message to DeepMind employees on X (formerly Twitter).

It wrote that DeepMind employees were desperately turning to him on a weekly basis, asking him how they could get around their notice periods and non-compete agreements. He went on to say that these contracts should not be signed. "No American company should have that much power, especially not in Europe."

According to the report, some employees are so desperate that they are toying with the idea of turning their backs on the UK to find a job in the USA. This is because these clauses are no longer permitted there.

In Germany, such post-contractual non-compete clauses are not unusual. They may be agreed for a maximum period of two years after the end of the employment relationship.

(vbr)