OpenAI Acquisitions: Every AI Lab Deal by OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI

Our analysts assembled a deal-by-deal database of the 65 acquisitions, acqui-hires, and licensing-and-hire deals that Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI announced or were reported to have made from January 2014 through October 20, 2026, checking each against a company announcement, regulatory filing, or news report, to show what AI lab M&A looks like as of Q4 2026.

The sections below count the deals by lab and by year, list every deal for each of the four labs with its reported price, deal type, and status, and break down how much the labs have paid where a price was reported. Deals by the labs' consulting ventures and Alphabet's non-AI purchases are listed separately so they can be checked against other counts.

How Many Deals Each AI Lab Has Made

We started by counting every deal by lab and adding up the prices that were reported. The two measures tell different stories: the deal count shows which lab is buying most often, and the reported value shows where the largest sums have gone.

• Google and OpenAI account for 54 of the 65 deals. Google's deals span 13 years, while OpenAI's 26 all came in the 26 months from August 2023 to October 2026.
• xAI has the fewest deals, 3, and by far the most reported value, $93 billion. Both of its large deals were all-stock: the merger with X, another Elon Musk company, and Cursor, which closed after SpaceX absorbed xAI.
• Anthropic made its first deal, the Humanloop team, in August 2025. Half of its 8 deals went into Claude Code, the Claude Platform, or Claude for Life Sciences.

AI Lab Acquisitions by Year, 2014 to 2026

Next we grouped the deals by the year each one was first announced or reported. This shows when each lab became an active buyer, and how much of the activity is recent.

• Google made 15 AI deals from 2014 through 2023, never more than 4 in a year. Since 2024 it has made 13, as the other three labs became active buyers.
• Of the 65 deals, 51, or 78%, were announced from 2023 onward. 2026 is the busiest year so far, with 25 deals through Oct. 20, against 18 in all of 2025.
• There were no deals in 2015 or 2020. Through 2022, Google was the only one of the four labs making acquisitions; OpenAI's first deal came in August 2023.

Every OpenAI Acquisition, 2023 to 2026

OpenAI's deals are the ones reporters ask about most, so we list all 26 first, newest at the top. Each row gives the reported price where there is one and the product the company or team went into, which shows what OpenAI has been buying for.

• Of OpenAI's 26 deals, 9 were acqui-hires, where the founders joined OpenAI and the startup's product was shut down or wound down. Roi, Hiro, and Multi all closed their apps within weeks.
• Coding is the clearest theme. Four deals, Statsig, Alex, Astral, and Ona, went into Codex, and OpenAI's planned $3 billion purchase of Windsurf would have been its largest coding deal.
• OpenAI's 2026 deals reach well beyond models: health records (Torch), a tech talk show (TBPN), computational photography (Glass Imaging), advertising agents (Notch), and drug development software (Orchestra Bio).

Every Google AI Acquisition Since DeepMind

Google has been buying AI companies the longest, so its list starts with DeepMind in January 2014. This table covers Google's and Alphabet's 28 AI deals, including the license-and-hire deals that brought AI teams into Google DeepMind without buying the company.

• Since August 2024, Google has made 7 licensing-and-hire deals, including Character.AI ($2.7 billion), Windsurf (about $2.4 billion), Hume AI, Contextual AI, and Mechanize. In each one the startup stayed independent.
• Five of Google's deals since September 2024, including Evaluable AI, MutableAI, and Upollo, first became public through the EU's list of acquisitions notified under the Digital Markets Act, so their dates are notification dates.
• Two of Google's oldest deals still shape its products. DeepMind, bought for about $400 million in 2014, became Google DeepMind, which builds Google's Gemini models, and Kaggle, bought in 2017, became part of Google Cloud.

Every Anthropic Acquisition

Anthropic started buying later than the other three labs, so its list is short. This table lists all 8 of its deals and the Claude product each one went into.

• Three of Anthropic's 8 deals, Bun, Stainless, and Mendral, went into Claude Code or the Claude Platform for developers.
• Coefficient Bio is Anthropic's largest reported deal, at about $400 million in stock in April 2026. Stainless, the SDK maker, followed in May at a reported price of more than $300 million.
• All 8 of Anthropic's deals came from August 2025 onward, and six of them in 2026. Opaque Systems, in October 2026, is its only licensing-and-hire deal.

Every xAI Acquisition, Including the X Merger

xAI has made only three deals, but they include the two largest in the database. This table lists all three, including the merger with X and the Cursor deal that closed after SpaceX absorbed xAI.

• The X Corp. merger in March 2025 valued X at $33 billion in equity, or $45 billion including $12 billion of debt. It was an all-stock deal between two companies controlled by Elon Musk.
• Cursor, the AI coding company Anysphere, was acquired for an implied $60 billion in stock and closed Aug. 14, 2026, according to SpaceX's 8-K filing. It is the largest deal in the database.
• Hotshot, an AI video startup bought in March 2025, is xAI's only small deal. Its team went to work on Grok's video generation.

How AI Labs Structure Their Deals

Labs do not always buy companies outright. We sorted each deal into one of three types and tracked its status, because the structure decides whether the startup keeps operating, what the lab ends up owning, and whether regulators get a formal review.

• Outright acquisitions made up 43 of the 65 deals, or 66%. Acqui-hires made up 14, and nine of those were OpenAI's.
• All 8 licensing-and-hire deals were made from August 2024 onward, 7 by Google and 1 by Anthropic. OpenAI and xAI have not used the structure.
• OpenAI's Windsurf deal is the only one in the database that was abandoned. Six deals are agreed with no confirmed close found, and OpenAI's purchase of Astral is still pending regulatory approval.

What AI Labs Paid: Reported Deal Values

We collected every price that a company, filing, or credible news report put on a deal. This shows how much of the spending is visible, which years it fell in, and how concentrated it is in a few very large deals.

• Of the 65 deals, 53, or 82%, have no price counted in the totals. Most acqui-hires and small acquisitions are never priced publicly.
• The two largest deals, Cursor and X Corp., make up 87% of the $107.3 billion. Without them, the other 10 priced deals add up to $14 billion.
• OpenAI's 4 priced deals total about $8 billion, and io Products is 82% of that. Google's 4 priced AI deals total $5.6 billion.

Firms Bought by the Labs' Consulting Ventures

OpenAI and Anthropic have also backed consulting ventures that buy firms of their own. We list those deals separately because the buyer is a separate company the lab backs, not the lab itself, and they are not counted in the totals above.

Alphabet Deals Outside the AI Count

Several large Alphabet deals since 2024 are often reported next to its AI purchases. We checked each one and list them here with the reason it is left out, so the Google count above can be compared with other lists.

The Most Recent AI Lab Deals

Finally, we looked at the deals announced since the start of September 2026, to see where the labs have been spending most recently.

The labs made five deals in that period: Google struck a licensing-and-hire deal with Mechanize (Sept. 11, 2026); OpenAI bought Glass Imaging (Sept. 14, 2026); Anthropic struck a licensing-and-hire deal with Opaque Systems (Oct. 13, 2026); OpenAI hired the team of Notch (Oct. 14, 2026); and OpenAI bought Orchestra Bio (Oct. 20, 2026).

The newest deal in the database is OpenAI's purchase of Orchestra Bio, announced Oct. 20, 2026. Its drug development software is going into OpenAI's Rosalind life sciences tools.