A Google veteran who founded Character.AI is jumping to OpenAI

• Noam Shazeer is leaving Google to join OpenAI as competition for AI talent intensifies.
• Shazeer is a Google veteran and the founder of chatbot startup Character.AI.
• Shazeer was a key part of Google’s early LLM development efforts.

Noam Shazeer, a co-lead at Gemini and the founder of Character.AI is leaving Google to join OpenAI in the latest AI talent war move.

In an X post on Wednesday, Shazeer announced his departure and said he looks forward to working with the “exceptional team” at the ChatGPT maker.

“It was a difficult decision to move on. I’m incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we’ve built together,” Shazeer wrote. “It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you.”

The Gemini co-lead joined Google in 2000 and stayed with the company, aside from a three-year period when he left to cofound the chatbot-building startup Character.AI. In 2024, the search giant rehired the founders and paid for non-exclusive rights to use the startup’s technology. Character.AI remains a separate legal entity.

In 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google paid Character.AI $2.7 billion for a special deal that gave Google access to the startup’s technology, and an agreement that Shazeer would have to work for Google again.

Shazeer was a key part of Google’s early AI development efforts. A 2017 paper he coauthored is largely seen as the kickstarter to present-day large language models.

Shazeer’s move to the IPO-bound company is the latest in a series of top-talent reshuffles at AI heavyweights. Labs, including OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Anthropic, are offering top researchers and engineers enormous pay packages and devising complex acqui-hire deals to incentivize them to make the jump.