Google is reorganizing the AI coding tools "strike team" it set up inside DeepMind in April 2026, in a bid to catch up with Anthropic, which leads in AI coding, according to reporting that emerged in late June 2026.
AI Coding Race · Google vs Anthropic
Google Rebuilds Its AI Coding "Strike Team" to Chase Claude Code
Months after standing up a dedicated team, Google is converting it into a permanent "midtraining" group — a bid to close the gap with Anthropic in the most lucrative enterprise AI use case.
~Apr 2026
Coding strike team formed
Months
Before structure was revamped
2
Key researchers reportedly departed
The "Midtraining" Stage
A new layer for intensively honing specific skills like coding and business workflows.
Pretraining
broad knowledge
→
Midtraining
skill-specific honing
→
Post-training
polished for users
Google
Gemini / Gemini CLI
Strengths
Math & spatial reasoning, fewer tool-call failures, generous free tier for Pro
Challenges
Catching up in coding, mid-reorganization
Current Move
Strike team → permanent midtraining group
Anthropic
Claude Code
Strengths
Whole-codebase context understanding, reliability
Challenges
High cost, consistency in long sessions
Current Move
Leads with coding as a core area
Why It Matters
Agentic coding is seen as one of the most profitable enterprise AI use cases — and the prize Google is racing to rebuild around.
Expanded mission
Coding, long-running autonomous agents, even slide-making
Dedicated resources
Specialized training & compute allocation
The test ahead
Can a permanent group keep narrowing the gap?
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