India, April 8 -- As the AI race is heating up, top companies are looking to hire the best talent to get ahead and Google is no different. According to a report by Business Insider, Google is hiring employees for a year and paying them to do nothing rather than letting them work for a competitor.

Reports suggest that Google's noncompete agreements for such employees prohibit them from working for a competitor for up to 12 months after they leave Google. Four former employees who chose to remain anonymous told Business Insider that some Google DeepMind staff in the UK are subject to such noncompete agreements.

The issues came to light after Nando de Freitas, Microsoft AI's vice president and a former DeepMind director, took to X to share...