Noam Shazeer’s relationship with Google dates back to 2000, when he was among the company’s first few hundred employees.

Noam Shazeer, a pioneering AI engineer and early Google employee (2000), has re-joined the tech giant after parting ways. This homecoming comes with a hefty price tag of $2.7 billion. AI Genius Noam Shazeer Shazeer's departure in 2021 stemmed from Google's hesitance to release a chatbot he co-developed with Daniel De Freitas.

Google recently paid $2.7 billion to rehire 48-year-old AI expert Noam Shazeer, an industry pioneer and co-founder of Character.AI.

Once a critic of Google’s cautious stance on AI, Noam Shazeer is now one of three key leaders in charge of developing Gemini, the next phase of Google’s AI technology.

In August, Google signed a $2.7 billion deal with AI startup Character.AI, aiming to rehire former top engineer Noam Shazeer. Shazeer, co-creator of key AI innovations, left Google in 2021 to found Character.