Google re-hired its long-time researcher, Noam Shazeer, to co-lead its AI models in a $2.7 billion deal, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr Shazeer quit Google in 2021 after being a part of the company for 21 years.
He reportedly quit when the company refused to launch a chatbot head had built along with a colleague. He went on to head the Character. AI.
He was a co-author of a seminal 2017 research paper which catalyzed the current AI boom. Character.AI utilizes the technical advancements pioneered in the paper. It has raised $193 million and was valued at $1 billion last year by venture capitalists.
Character.AI reached a valuation of $1 Billion last year. Google paid $2.7 Billion to Character.AI for a transfer of technology and bringing back Mr Shazeer to Google, the report said.
AI-boom has prompted startups to release new features to their chatbots as competitors such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Google and Amazon-backed Anthropic are looking to gain market share by engaging new users.
Last year, Google was in talks to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Character.AI, but chose to bring him back.
The deal, which resembles similar moves by Amazon and Microsoft to nab top talent from AI startups, comes at a time when the Big Tech companies are facing regulatory scrutiny.
Shazeer is serving as a technical lead on Gemini – Google’s AI chatbot – joining the other co-leaders Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals. Gemini is the line of AI models being developed by DeepMind, Google’s AI division, and which are being integrated into products such as Search and Pixel smartphones.