Google is negotiating a deal worth over $1.5 billion with Mechanize

According to an exclusive report by Business Insider, Google is in negotiations with San Francisco AI programming agency startup Mechanize for a potential deal involving the acquisition of some of its talent at a valuation exceeding $1.5 billion, while also discussing a non-exclusive technology licensing agreement. The acquired talent will be responsible for model evaluation and development. The details of the deal are still in progress and may change.

Mechanize was founded last year with the long-term goal of "automating all valuable work," currently focusing on the software engineering field. The company has previously completed $9.1 million in funding, with a valuation of $500 million, and investors include former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, among others. CEO Tamay Besiroglu co-founded Epoch AI. Reports indicate that Google is facing competitive pressure in the AI programming field from OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code, and Mechanize's technology could help enhance model programming performance. Neither Google nor Mechanize has responded to requests for comment.