Google Eyes $1.5B Deal for AI Coding Startup

Google is in talks to license technology from AI startup Mechanize and hire some of its top employees in a deal valued at around $1.5 billion. Mechanize, founded last year with $9.1 million in funding, builds virtual environments and benchmarks to train AI agents on business tasks, with a current focus on software engineering. The deal reflects Google's push to close the gap with rivals Anthropic and OpenAI in AI coding tools. Rather than a full acquisition, Google is pursuing a hybrid licensing-and-talent arrangement, a strategy it has used before with Windsurf and Character Technologies to avoid antitrust scrutiny.