Noam Shazeer, co-lead of Google's Gemini, is departing to join OpenAI.

      Noam Shazeer is departing Google to join OpenAI. He is widely recognized as a principal architect of Google’s Gemini models and a co-author of the 2017 paper on transformers that serves as the foundation for nearly all contemporary large language models. Shazeer announced his move on X, stating, “I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there.”

      The speed of his departure is notable. Shazeer returned to Google under two years ago in a remarkable deal where the company reportedly paid around $2.7 billion to bring him and his team of researchers back from Character.AI, the startup he co-founded after his initial exit from Google.

      Losing him so quickly to a direct competitor like OpenAI highlights a significant talent drain that financial investments were supposed to avoid. Shazeer is a vice president of engineering at Google and a co-leader of the Gemini initiative. As a co-author of “Attention Is All You Need,” the seminal paper that introduced the transformer architecture, he is part of a select group of researchers whose work supports ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and much of what is now defined as AI. His decision to switch affiliations carries considerable implications that extend beyond just a single hire.

      OpenAI benefits from his arrival at a critical juncture as the company is reportedly moving towards an initial public offering. Recruiting a researcher of Shazeer’s caliber to focus on new model architectures signals not only a research advancement but also a strong market message regarding the company’s ambitions.

      For a company whose strategy centers on remaining at the forefront of model design, bringing aboard one of the co-inventors of the transformer architecture serves as a powerful statement.

      Google’s loss occurs amidst escalating competition with OpenAI and Anthropic across the enterprise AI landscape. At this year’s Cloud Next, Google revamped its AI platform around agents, consolidating products and aligning partnerships in an explicit effort to outperform its competitors. The Gemini models play a crucial role in this strategy, making the departure of one of their co-leads more than just a typical staffing issue.

      The competitive dynamics around Gemini have also been evident in other contexts. Google has been advancing its models into prominent deployments, including a Pentagon rollout that expanded from tens of thousands of users to over a million in just six months. Retaining the technical talent necessary to build these models is essential for maintaining that momentum. Shazeer’s exit serves as a reminder of how fluid the movement of top researchers is, even after substantial investments are made to keep them.

      His departure also reopens discussions within the industry regarding the effectiveness of large retention packages. Google’s reported $2.7 billion effort to bring back Shazeer and his team was regarded as proof that major companies are willing to invest heavily to retain those who create cutting-edge models. His swift exit implies that while money may secure presence, it doesn’t guarantee permanence, and the attraction of a company recognized as the forefront of the field can surpass a nine-figure incentive to remain.

      Additionally, this development fuels a recruitment trend that OpenAI has been actively pursuing. Over the past year, the company has been aggressively hiring from competitors while enhancing its commercial reach, including distribution agreements that have made its models accessible to a broader range of enterprise clients. Acquiring a researcher of Shazeer’s standing represents both a gain in capability and a boost in morale, sending a message about the direction of influence in the industry.

      Neither company has disclosed the specifics of Shazeer’s move, such as his start date or his exact role at OpenAI beyond his work on new architectures. What is clear, however, is Shazeer’s announcement and its significance: less than two years after a multibillion-dollar effort to bring him back, Google’s Gemini co-lead is transitioning to OpenAI.