Google's Gemini Co-Lead Noam Shazeer Departs for OpenAI

Shazeer joined Google in 2000 and was instrumental in various AI advancements. He was a lead author of the 2017 paper "Attention Is All You Need," which introduced the transformer architecture, a foundational element for modern large language models. He also co-built the chatbot Meena with Daniel de Freitas and played a central role in Google's LaMDA conversational AI project.

In 2021, Shazeer co-founded Character.AI, an AI chat platform built on Transformer technology. In August 2024, Google reportedly spent $2.7 billion to rehire Shazeer, with estimates suggesting he netted $750 million to $1 billion from the deal due to his ownership stake in Character.AI.

Time Magazine recognized Shazeer in 2023 as one of the 100 most influential people in the AI world. His work has spanned deep technical research, large-scale system design, and leadership in AI product development.