Google has reportedly paid $2.7 billion to bring back artificial intelligence expert Noam Shazeer, who had left the company to start his own business. According to The Wall Street Journal report, Shazeer, a 48-year-old software engineer, joined Google in 2000 but left in 2021 after the tech giant declined his request to release a chatbot he developed with colleague Daniel De Freitas.
Shazeer and De Freitas went on to create Character.AI, a Silicon Valley startup that gained rapid success, reaching a $1 billion valuation last year.
Recently, Google announced that both Shazeer and De Freitas would rejoin the company through its AI division, DeepMind. As part of the deal, Google paid $2.7 billion to licence Character.AI’s technology and secure Shazeer’s return to the team, according to the report.
The licensing agreement gives Google instant access to Character.AI’s intellectual property, avoiding delays from regulatory approvals. The move is seen by Google employees as a significant factor in the company’s acquisition of Character.AI, driven largely by Shazeer’s expertise.
Shazeer’s skills in AI have long been recognised within Google.
In 2017, Shazeer created Meena, a chatbot designed to hold human-like conversations on a variety of topics. At the time, he predicted that Meena could eventually replace Google’s search engine. However, Google’s leadership decided not to release Meena, citing concerns about safety and fairness.
Now back at Google, Noam Shazeer will lead the company’s development of the next version of Gemini, a cutting-edge AI model intended to compete with platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
