- Noam Shazeer, Google VP of Engineering, is leaving to join OpenAI after leading Gemini AI models
- He rejoined Google in 2024 via a $2.7 billion deal involving Character.AI technology
- Shazeer co-authored the 2017 paper that introduced transformer technology for AI chatbots
Noam Shazeer, Google's Vice President of Engineering, announced on Wednesday that he is joining OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. He was one of the leaders behind the company's Gemini AI models.
"I'm excited to share that I'll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there. It was a difficult decision to move on," he wrote on the social media platform X.
I'm excited to share that I'll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there.
— Noam Shazeer (@NoamShazeer) June 18, 2026
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…
His exit comes less than two years after Google spent about $2.7 billion in a deal to bring him back to the company.
"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," he added.
Who is Noam Shazeer?
Noam Shazeer joined Google as a software engineer in 2000. He helped improve the spelling correction system used in Google Search.
In 2017, he co-authored the landmark research paper "Attention Is All You Need," which introduced the transformer technology which later became the foundation for AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
Shazeer worked on an AI chatbot called Meena at Google. However, after the company decided not to release the chatbot publicly, he and colleague Daniel de Freitas left Google in 2021 to start their own company, Character.AI which quickly became one of the world's most popular AI chatbot startups. In 2023, Time magazine named him among the 100 most influential people in AI.
Google brought Shazeer back in 2024 as part of a $2.7 billion deal to license Character.AI's technology. He was appointed a technical lead for Google's Gemini AI project. Shazeer owned an estimated 30 to 40% stake in Character.AI, the deal reportedly earned him between $750 million and $1 billion.
At Google, he served as Vice President of Engineering and helped lead the development of Gemini, In 2026, he was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional honours for engineers in the United States. However, in June 2026, Shazeer announced that he was leaving Google once again to join OpenAI.
