New Delhi: In a significant turn of events, Google reportedly made a hefty payment to rehire a former employee — Noam Shazeer — who will now lead its Artificial Intelligence (AI) project. 48-year-old software engineer Noam Shazeer was hired by the technology giant in 2000. It was in 2021, that he left Google when the tech giant decided not to release the chatbot he developed with colleague Daniel De Freitas.
Later, the duo founded Character.AI, a chatbot service that enables users to create and interact with AI models of celebrities and fictional characters, which became quite famous as an AI startup in Silicon Valley, achieving a valuation of $1 billion last year.
Noam Shazeer Returns to Google in a $2.7 Billion Deal
Twenty years ago, Shazeer joined Google. However, 21 years later, circumstances shifted. The tech giant declined to launch a chatbot he developed with his colleague, Daniel De Freitas. While at the tech giant, Shazeer co-authored a groundbreaking research paper in 2017 titled “Attention is All You Need.” This paper introduced the foundational system behind many popular generative AI tools today, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s own Gemini. Additionally, his contributions to enhancing the spelling corrector in Google’s search engine garnered significant attention.
In 2020, Shazeer and De Freitas introduced Meena, a chatbot capable of engaging in conversations on a wide range of topics. However, Google chose not to release it due to concerns that the chatbot might say something inappropriate.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the 48-year-old software engineer was first hired by Google in 2000 and left the company in 2021 after it rejected his request to launch a chatbot he created with his colleague Daniel De Freitas. Later, in 2021 via a process called ‘reverse acqui-hire’, Noam was rehired by Google for $2.7 billion(Rs 226040085000).
Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas founded Character.AI, which became a leading AI startup in Silicon Valley, reaching a $1 billion valuation last year. Following this success, Google announced that both would join its AI unit, DeepMind, and paid Character.AI $2.7 billion to license its technology and bring Shazeer on board, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The licensing agreement enables Google to access Character.AI’s intellectual property immediately, bypassing the need for regulatory approval. Reports suggest that Noam Shazeer’s return to Google is seen as a key reason for the acquisition by the company’s employees.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was reportedly impressed with Noam Shazeer, which enabled him to develop an AI model capable of operating with human-level intelligence. Noam Shazeer will now spearhead Google’s efforts to develop the next version of Gemini, the company’s next-generation AI model designed to compete with rivals like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
