Noam Shazeer Leaves Google for OpenAI as AI Architecture Lead
Gemini co-lead and Google VP engineering Noam Shazeer is joining OpenAI to lead AI architecture research.
AI-generated summary. This news item was written automatically by an AI pipeline from published reporting and was not reviewed by a person before publication. It may contain errors. Read the original source.
Shazeer Moves to OpenAI
Noam Shazeer, vice-president of engineering at Google and a Gemini AI model co-lead, will leave Google to join OpenAI. At OpenAI, Shazeer will act as the organisation’s lead for AI architecture research.
A History of Foundational Work
Shazeer co-authored a pioneering paper on AI in 2017, exploring the transformer architecture that defines the generative AI of today.
The move comes after Shazeer left Google in 2021 to found Character.AI. He returned to Google in 2024 with a team of researchers in a deal reportedly valued at roughly $2.7 billion.
Source: Silicon Republic
Developments since publication
-
Noam Shazeer announced his departure from Google on June 18, 2026 and is joining OpenAI as Lead for Architecture Research. Source
-
Google paid approximately $2.7 billion in August 2024 to bring Noam Shazeer back from Character.AI in a licensing arrangement that lasted less than 22 months. Source
-
Google made Gemini 3.5 Flash the default model across all Gemini consumer and enterprise products on June 18, 2026, retiring Gemini 2.5 Flash from the default position. Source