Google, OpenAI Snap Up Startup Founders; AI War Games

Earlier this year, a string of founders left their artificial intelligence startups for Google, Amazon and Microsoft after striking licensing deals with the technology giants. Now things are reversing: some founders lately have left their startups for bigger rivals after exploring—but not inking—acquisitions.

On Monday, Justin Uberti, cofounder and chief technology officer of Fixie.ai, announced he had joined OpenAI to lead its real-time AI efforts, which aim to allow people to speak with chatbots without significant delay. (OpenAI last month introduced an application programming interface, called Realtime API, so developers can build these fast “speech-to-speech” experiences.)