Google has appointed Noam Shazeer, the former founder of Character.AI and a longtime Google researcher, as co-lead of its key AI project, Gemini. Shazeer will join Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals as a technical lead in the development of Gemini, Google’s line of AI models being built by its DeepMind division. These models are integral to products such as Google Search and Pixel smartphones.
Shazeer’s return to Google comes after the tech giant reportedly paid billions to acquire him and a select group of employees from Character.AI, along with securing a licensing agreement with the startup. Character.AI, which Shazeer founded in 2021, specializes in chatbot technology and has raised $193 million, reaching a $1 billion valuation last year.
"We are thrilled to join the best team on earth building the most valuable technology on earth", Shazeer said in response to the memo announcing his new role. The memo was first reported by The Information.
Shazeer originally joined Google in 2000, two years after its founding, and was a co-author of the 2017 research paper that laid the foundation for the current AI boom. The advancements detailed in that paper directly influenced the technology behind Character.AI, which has since become a leading player in the chatbot space.
Google had reportedly considered investing hundreds of millions in Character.AI before ultimately deciding to bring Shazeer back in-house. This move mirrors strategies by other Big Tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft, which have been recruiting top AI talent from startups in similar high-profile deals. These talent acquisitions have drawn regulatory attention, with the Federal Trade Commission scrutinizing the deals.
Google’s appointment of Shazeer comes amid ongoing regulatory challenges. Recently, a U.S. judge ruled that Google’s search engine practices violated antitrust laws, accusing the company of spending billions to maintain an illegal monopoly.
Shazeer’s return to Google is seen as a strategic move to strengthen its AI capabilities amid intensifying competition and regulatory pressure.