Google is in talks to acquire talent and license technology from Mechanize, a 35-person San Francisco startup valued at over $1.5 billion, to improve its AI coding capabilities. Mechanize, founded in April 2025 by former Epoch AI researchers, builds training environments and evaluation frameworks for coding agents using reinforcement learning. Rather than a full acquisition — which would attract antitrust scrutiny — Google would hire key staff and take a non-exclusive technology license, mirroring its earlier deals with Windsurf and Character AI. The move comes amid a difficult period for Google's AI division, with DeepMind leadership departures and Gemini lagging behind OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code in coding benchmarks. The $1.5 billion figure covers the full arrangement including licensing fees, salaries, and investor payouts, not a straightforward purchase price.
