Google apparently paid $2.7 billion to bring back an AI expert named Noam Shazeer, who left the company three years ago after a disagreement over a chatbot he co-developed, as per a report by The Wall Street Journal.
Shazeer, a 48-year-old software engineer and one of Google’s early hires in 2000 left the company in 2021 when Google declined to release the chatbot he built with colleague Daniel De Freitas. Together, they founded Character.AI, which became a top AI startup in Silicon Valley, hitting a $1 billion valuation last year.
Just last month, Google and Character.AI revealed that Shazeer, De Freitas and certain members of Character.AI’s research team would be joining Google’s AI unit DeepMind. Google reportedly cut a $2.7 billion check to Character. AI. The payment was for licensing Character’s technology, but the agreement also included a key condition: Noam Shazeer would return to work for Google.
The licensing deal grants Google instant access to Character.AI’s intellectual property, bypassing the need for regulatory approval. According to reports, Google’s employees see Noam Shazeer’s return as the key motivator behind the acquisition of Character.AI.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was reportedly so impressed with Noam Shazeer that it paved the way for Shazeer to develop an AI model capable of human-level intelligence. “If there’s anyone in the world who can achieve it, it’s him,” Schmidt said of Shazeer in 2015. Two years later, in 2017, Shazeer went on to create Meena, a chatbot capable of engaging humans across a variety of topics.
As per the report, Shazeer was so confident in Meena’s potential that he predicted it could eventually replace Google’s search engine. However, Google’s leadership deemed it too risky to release, citing concerns over safety and fairness.
As per the report, Noam Shazeer, who once criticised Google for being too cautious with AI development, is now one of three leaders overseeing the creation of the next version of its cutting-edge AI technology, Gemini. Shazeer has reportedly made hundreds of millions from his stake in Character.AI as part of the deal.