“I’m extremely proud of the incredible team at Google and all that we’ve achieved together,” Shazeer shared on X, expressing his “excitement” about joining OpenAI. The specific timing of his exit from Google was not disclosed.
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be joining OpenAI and am eager to collaborate with the outstanding team there.
It was a challenging choice to move on. I’m very proud of the remarkable team at Google and everything we’ve accomplished together. It has been both an honor and a joy to…
— Noam Shazeer (@NoamShazeer) June 18, 2026
Shazeer’s departure coincides with OpenAI gearing up for an initial public offering in the latter half of this year, following other AI rivals like Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI filing for IPOs. Currently, OpenAI holds a valuation of $852 billion.
However, data from Sensor Tower’s ‘True Audience’ indicates that ChatGPT’s share of the AI market has dipped below 50% for the first time, marking a decline from its previous dominance as competitors like Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini gained ground.
Less than two years ago, Google reportedly invested $2.7 billion to bring Shazeer, the former head of Character.AI, back along with his research team. This decision came after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, which transformed the AI landscape. In reaction to the rapid success of that chatbot, Google introduced Bard in 2023, later rebranding it as Gemini.
In 2024, Google appointed Shazeer to co-lead the development of its Gemini AI model. He has been recognized as a pivotal figure in narrowing the gap between Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Shazeer was one of Google’s early employees, starting in 2000, where he played a role in enhancing the search engine’s spelling correction system.
He was also a member of the Google Brain team and co-authored the influential 2017 paper “Attention Is All You Need,” which helped launch the AI boom by presenting the Transformer architecture essential for modern large language models (LLMs).
After leaving Google due to the company’s refusal to publicly release a chatbot he developed with his colleagues, he founded Character.AI, a startup that enabled users to interact with AI-generated versions of famous real and fictional characters. This company was among the first to create consumer chatbot products utilizing Transformer technology before the debut of ChatGPT.
“We appreciate Noam’s significant contributions to Google over the years,” said Google in a statement.
(With inputs from agencies)
