Alphabet Slides 7% on Monday, Worst Day in a Year as Key AI Researchers Depart

According to CNBC, Alphabet shares slid 7% on Monday morning, marking the company's worst day in a year amid mounting concerns over artificial intelligence competition and high-profile talent departures.

Noam Shazeer, vice president of engineering and co-lead of Google's Gemini AI models, announced Wednesday he was leaving for rival OpenAI after less than two years at the company. The departure came days before John Jumper, DeepMind VP and co-creator of AlphaFold, announced Friday he was joining Anthropic after nine years at Google. Jumper won a Nobel Prize in 2024 alongside Google's Demis Hassabis for his AI protein-folding breakthrough.