Noam Shazeer, Google's Vice President of Engineering and co-leader of its Gemini AI initiatives, announced on Wednesday that he will be leaving the tech giant to join OpenAI. In a post on the platform X, Shazeer expressed his enthusiasm, stating, "I'm excited to share that I'll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there."
Reflecting on his time at Google, he mentioned, "It was a difficult decision to move on. I'm incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we've built together. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you."
Shazeer’s exit comes less than two years after he rejoined Google. In August 2024, he and fellow researcher Daniel De Freitas returned to Google’s AI division, DeepMind, as part of a collaboration with Character.AI, a startup the duo founded after their initial departure from Google in 2021. They left the company after Google opted not to aggressively pursue a chatbot initiative that they had advocated.
The move highlights the fierce competition among tech firms for leading AI talent. It also arrives shortly after Google launched several new AI products at its annual I/O developer conference, including the Gemini 3.5 Flash model and the Gemini Spark AI agent.
Meanwhile, OpenAI, known for its ChatGPT product, made headlines earlier this month by confidentially filing for an initial public offering, setting the stage for a highly anticipated technology listing in the coming months.


