Breaking

Transformer Co-Author Noam Shazeer Leaves Google for OpenAI

June 19, 2026 at 11:01 EDT

Recruiting & HR
Foundation Models
Funding & M&A

Noam Shazeer, a leading AI researcher at Google and a co-leader of Gemini, will leave the company to join OpenAI, it emerged on June 18, 2026. The move of a researcher who helped lay the groundwork for the Transformer architecture marks a significant talent gain for OpenAI as it races Anthropic and Google to build more advanced models.

June 18, 2026 · AI Talent Move

Transformer Co-Author Noam Shazeer Leaves Google's Gemini for OpenAI

The co-author of "Attention Is All You Need" and a Gemini technical co-lead is joining OpenAI — a marquee talent win as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google race for more advanced models. Sam Altman: "It only took 10 years... it will be worth the wait."

2017

Co-authored the Transformer paper underpinning GPT & Gemini

~$2.7B

Google's 2024 deal that brought him back via Character.AI

~2 yrs

Length of his return stint before leaving for OpenAI

A career across modern AI's milestones

2000

Joins Google

2017

Co-authors "Attention Is All You Need" — the Transformer architecture

2021

Leaves to co-found Character.AI

2024

Returns to Google via Character.AI licensing deal; becomes VP of Engineering & Gemini co-lead

2026

Joins OpenAI

A win for OpenAI

Landing a Transformer co-author and Gemini co-lead is called one of the most significant talent moves in AI history — adding deep technical bench as OpenAI is reported to prepare for an IPO.

A blow for Google

Losing a leader brought back at great expense in under two years is seen as a setback for Google DeepMind and the Gemini team, where he worked alongside Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals.

Still unknown

No release timing for new models, benchmark impact, or his exact role and focus at OpenAI has been disclosed. The deal's precise timing and terms remain undisclosed. His next contributions are the thing to watch.

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