One of Google’s most influential AI engineers has switched sides.
Noam Shazeer, a principal architect of Google’s Gemini models and a co-inventor of the foundational technology powering modern AI, is leaving the search giant to join its chief rival, OpenAI. Shazeer, who held the title of vice president of engineering at Google and co-led its flagship Gemini AI model effort, announced his departure on Wednesday on X.
The exit is particularly jarring given the massive financial effort Google made to secure his talent. Shazeer originally joined Google in 2000 but left in 2021 after the company opted against aggressively pursuing a chatbot project he had championed, according to CNBC. He subsequently co-founded Character.AI, which became one of the industry's most prominent startups.
In August 2024, Google orchestrated a massive $2.7 billion deal to bring Shazeer and a team of his researchers back to its DeepMind AI unit. The arrangement required Shazeer to return to Google and granted the tech giant non-exclusive rights to Character.AI’s technology, while Character.AI remained a separate legal entity.
Now, less than two years after that multibillion-dollar homecoming, Shazeer is joining the maker of ChatGPT.
‘Worth the wait’
At OpenAI, Shazeer will step into a pivotal role, serving as the lead for AI architecture research with a core focus on how to build models, according to Dealroom.
OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman openly celebrated the high-profile recruitment on X, revealing that the pursuit had been a decade in the making. "noam is one of the people I have most wanted to work with since the very beginning of openai," Altman wrote. "only took 10 years. i think it will be worth the wait!"
For his part, Shazeer described the move as a painful but exciting transition. “I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there,” Shazeer posted on X. “It was a difficult decision to move on. I’m incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we’ve built together. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you.”
Shazeer’s departure comes at a sensitive moment for Google’s AI push. The exit of a co-lead adds pressure at a time when competition with OpenAI and Anthropic is intensifying across both consumer and enterprise AI products, CNBC noted.
OpenAI, meanwhile, is moving aggressively on both talent and business expansion. Shazeer’s arrival adds weight to that momentum, especially given his influence on model architecture and foundational research.
Related reading: The company recently filed confidentially for an initial public offering, adding a financial layer to its rapid scaling efforts.