Noam Shazeer Exits Google For OpenAI — Check His Career & Net Worth

Noam Shazeer, a Google executive and co-lead of the Gemini AI project, has announced that he is leaving the company to join OpenAI, just two years after returning in a deal that reportedly cost Google $2.7 billion.

Shazeer, who served as Vice President of Engineering and helped lead Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence efforts, confirmed the move in a post on X (formerly Twitter), saying he was excited to join OpenAI and thanked his colleagues at Google for their support over the years.

His departure has drawn significant attention across the artificial intelligence industry, particularly because Google struck a $2.7 billion licensing agreement with Character.AI in 2024 that helped bring him back to the company. Reports at the time suggested that securing Shazeer's return was one of the key reasons behind the deal.

Who Is Noam Shazeer?

Shazeer, an American computer scientist and entrepreneur joined Google in 2000 and went on to become one of the company's most prominent artificial intelligence researchers. Early in his career, he helped improve Google's search spelling correction system before moving into AI research.

He later became a key member of Google Brain and gained global recognition in 2017 after co-authoring "Attention Is All You Need", the research paper that introduced the transformer model. The technology now powers many leading AI tools, including ChatGPT and Gemini.

The paper is widely seen as a turning point for the artificial intelligence industry and helped shape the development of today's large language models.

Shazeer’s Start-up Journey

While at Google, Shazeer developed a chatbot called Meena. After Google chose not to release the chatbot publicly, the pair left the company in 2021 and founded Character.AI.

The start-up gained popularity by allowing users to interact with artificial intelligence versions of celebrities, fictional characters and custom personalities. Character.AI quickly emerged as one of the most talked-about AI start-ups during the generative AI boom.

In 2024, Google signed a licensing deal with Character.AI that was valued at about $2.7 billion. The deal resulted in Shazeer and some of the start-up’s research team returning to Google, where he eventually took on a leading role in the Gemini project.

Recognition & Net Worth

Reports estimated that Shazeer earned between $750 million and $1 billion from Google's Character.AI deal. However, no official figure has been made public.

Shazeer’s influence goes beyond Google and Character.AI. In 2023, Time magazine named him among the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence.

In 2026, he was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional honours for engineers in the United States.