Google Invests $2.7 Billion to Rehire AI Innovator Noam Shazeer

Google Invests $2.7 Billion to Rehire AI Innovator Noam Shazeer

Google has made headlines with its recent $2.7 billion investment to bring back renowned AI expert Noam Shazeer, who previously left the tech giant to establish his own startup. Shazeer, a software engineer who joined Google in 2000, departed in 2021 after his request to launch a chatbot developed with colleague Daniel De Freitas was declined.

After leaving Google, Shazeer and De Freitas founded Character.AI, which quickly gained traction and achieved a valuation of $1 billion last year. In a strategic move, Google announced the hiring of both innovators into its AI division, DeepMind, along with the substantial licensing deal for Character.AI’s technology. This arrangement allows Google to leverage the startup's intellectual property without the delays associated with regulatory approval.

Shazeer's return is viewed as a critical factor in the acquisition, with even former Google CEO Eric Schmidt expressing confidence in his capabilities. Schmidt remarked in 2015 that Shazeer was among the few likely to achieve human-level AI. In 2017, Shazeer developed Meena, an advanced chatbot he believed could eventually rival Google’s search engine, although Google executives hesitated to release it over safety concerns.

Now, Shazeer is set to spearhead efforts to advance Google’s next-generation AI model, Gemini, positioning the company to compete against rivals like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This move underscores Google's commitment to bolstering its AI expertise in an increasingly competitive landscape.