DeepMind has not filed a single US labor condition application under its own name. Across five Department of Labor disclosure files covering every certified filing decided between October 1, 2024 and June 30, 2026, there is no DeepMind entity anywhere in the employer column, as of the FY2026 Q3 file. The people who would be called DeepMind staff in the United States are sponsored by Google LLC.
Key takeaways
- Zero labor condition applications were filed by DeepMind Technologies Limited, DeepMind Technologies LLC, Google DeepMind, or plain DeepMind in any of the five source files (Visionary Talks analysis of DOL LCA disclosure data, FY2026 Q3).
- Google LLC filed 15,994 certified H-1B cases over the same period. It is the sponsoring employer.
- Of those, 345 carry an AI research job title. Google's median filed base for that group is $210,000. That is a Google figure, not a DeepMind one.
- Seventeen Google LLC filings carry a job title beginning GDM, Google's internal shorthand for Google DeepMind. They are the only filings in the entire dataset that name DeepMind at all.
- Every one of those 17 was decided between September 10, 2025 and June 25, 2026, and all sit in California or New York.
This article is based on primary sources: the US Department of Labor Office of Foreign Labor Certification LCA disclosure files for FY2025 Q1 through Q4 and FY2026 Q3, which we processed in full. The absence reported here is an absence in those five workbooks, searched by employer legal name. Full source list at the bottom.
What We Searched For, And Did Not Find
Our pipeline matches employers on a normalised legal name, so punctuation and case do not cause misses. For DeepMind it looked for DeepMind Technologies Limited, DeepMind Technologies LLC, DeepMind Technologies, LLC, Google DeepMind, and DeepMind on its own.
Total certified filings found under all five: zero. Not a small number, not a number below our reporting threshold. Zero.
That is worth stating plainly because most salary sites will show you a DeepMind page with numbers on it. Those numbers are either self-reported survey data, or Google LLC filings relabelled. They are not DeepMind's federal filings, because no such filings exist in this period.
The reason is structural rather than suspicious. Labor condition applications are filed by the US entity that employs the worker. DeepMind Technologies Limited is a UK-registered company, and its name carries a UK corporate form. A UK company does not sponsor US visas. Google LLC does.
What Google LLC Pays For AI Research Titles
Everything in this section is Google LLC's filing data. It is not DeepMind pay, and it should not be quoted as such. It is included because Google LLC is the entity that actually employs US DeepMind staff, so it is the closest the public record comes to an answer.
Applying the same AI research title filter we use for the Meta AI page, Google LLC's 15,994 certified H-1B filings contain 345 AI research roles.
| Google LLC job title | Filings | Median base | Range within title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Scientist | 234 | $205,000 | $168,000 to $400,000 |
| Research Engineer | 73 | $222,000 | $160,000 to $271,000 |
| Senior Research Scientist | 7 | $236,000 | $230,000 to $252,000 |
| Senior Research Engineer | 5 | $238,000 | $230,000 to $245,000 |
| Staff Research Scientist | 5 | $285,000 | $267,000 to $300,000 |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 3 | $222,000 | $200,000 to $271,000 |
| Research Engineer (Software Engineer) | 3 | $222,000 | $222,000 to $242,000 |
| GDM Research Engineer | 3 | $147,867 | $134,139 to $164,403 |
| GDM Research Scientist | 3 | $147,867 | $134,139 to $164,403 |
| Director, Research Scientist | 1 | $400,000 | $400,000 to $400,000 |
One further Research Engineer filing, decided November 14, 2025, carries a base of $2,000,000. It is more than eight times Google's own p75 and we treat it as an employer entry error rather than an offer, so it is excluded from the range shown above and noted here instead.
Google LLC's median filed base across those 345 AI research filings is $210,000, with the middle half between $200,000 and $238,000. Google files a single exact salary rather than a range on 100% of them, and anchors at the legal prevailing wage on only 1.7%, so that figure is an offer rather than a floor.
For context, the pooled median across the 11 companies in the AI Salary Database is $200,000. Google's AI research filings sit $10,000 above it.
The Seventeen Filings That Say GDM
Google labels a small number of its filings with a GDM prefix. These are the only rows in 1.6 million that reference Google DeepMind in any form.
| Google LLC job title | Filings | Median base | Range within title |
|---|---|---|---|
| GDM Software Engineer | 4 | $174,689 | $131,997 to $242,000 |
| GDM Research Engineer | 3 | $147,867 | $134,139 to $164,403 |
| GDM Research Scientist | 3 | $147,867 | $134,139 to $164,403 |
| GDM Senior Software Engineer | 3 | $187,574 | $160,805 to $226,138 |
| GDM Product Manager | 2 | $181,722 | $139,443 to $224,000 |
| GDM Staff Research Scientist | 1 | $262,000 | $262,000 to $262,000 |
| GDM Staff Software Engineer | 1 | $281,000 | $281,000 to $281,000 |
Seventeen filings is not a payroll. It is a rounding error against Google's 15,994, and against the 345 AI research filings above. We are not publishing an average of them, because an average of seventeen self-selected rows would be presented everywhere as "the DeepMind salary" and it would not be one.
What the seventeen do establish is the shape of the thing. Google files DeepMind roles as Google roles, on Google paperwork, at Google worksites, using a title prefix as the only marker. Thirteen are in California, four in New York.
Why This Matters For Anyone Comparing Offers
If you are weighing a Google DeepMind offer against one from OpenAI or Anthropic, this data says something useful and something limited.
The useful part: your employer will be Google LLC, your visa will be a Google visa, and the pay band your role is filed against is a Google band. Google's AI research median of $210,000 is a better reference point than any DeepMind-labelled figure you will find online.
The limited part: base salary is where Google looks most conventional and least competitive. OpenAI's median filed base is $270,000, $60,000 above Google's AI research figure, and Anthropic's filed ranges top out at a $340,000 median. Neither gap accounts for equity, which none of this data captures and which at a public company works very differently from a private one.
FAQ
What is the average salary at Google DeepMind?
There is no DeepMind figure in the federal data, because DeepMind files no US labor applications. The relevant number is Google LLC's, which for the 345 AI research titles it filed between October 2024 and June 2026 is a median base of $210,000, as of the FY2026 Q3 file.
Why does DeepMind have no filings?
Labor condition applications are filed by the US employing entity. On this evidence that entity is Google LLC for every DeepMind role in the United States. The DeepMind names we searched include a UK corporate form, and UK companies do not sponsor US work visas.
Does Google pay less than OpenAI for AI research?
On filed base salary, yes. Google LLC's AI research median is $210,000 against OpenAI's $270,000. Both figures are base only, and Google is a public company whose equity is liquid, which is not true of OpenAI.
Can I trust DeepMind salary numbers on other sites?
Check what they are sourced from. If a figure is presented as DeepMind's federal filing data for this period, it cannot be, because there is none. Self-reported survey data is a legitimate but different thing, and it should say so.
Sources
1. LCA Disclosure Data, FY2026 Q3, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Decisions from October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. Searched in full for all DeepMind legal names.
2. LCA Disclosure Data, FY2025 Q1 to Q4, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Decisions from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. Searched in full for all DeepMind legal names.
3. LCA Record Layout, FY2026 Q3, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Defines EMPLOYER_NAME as the entity filing on the worker's behalf.