Noam Shazeer (노암 샤지어), co-lead of Google’s flagship artificial intelligence (AI) model Gemini, is leaving the company to join OpenAI.

On June 18 local time, CNBC reported Shazeer said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that he is moving to OpenAI.

Shazeer has served as an engineering vice president at Google and was one of the key figures leading Gemini’s development. He said on X, "I am happy to share the news that I will be joining OpenAI," and "I look forward to working with the great team there."

The move comes less than 2 years after Shazeer returned to Google. In August 2024, Google brought Shazeer and researcher Daniel De Freitas back into its DeepMind AI organisation. The return was part of cooperation with Character.AI, which the two set up after leaving Google in 2021.

Shazeer and De Freitas previously left Google after the company did not push ahead aggressively with a chatbot project they led, and later founded Character.AI. Character.AI later grew into one of the leading AI startups.

Shazeer also said the decision was not easy. He said, "Leaving the company was a difficult decision," and "I am very proud of everything we have built with the amazing team at Google." He then told colleagues he worked with that "it was an honour and a joy."

The job move is seen as an example showing that competition between big tech and major AI companies to secure key research talent has intensified further. The trend is continuing in which AI competition is spreading beyond model performance and product launches into a battle to recruit researchers and engineers.

Just weeks ago, Google unveiled new AI products at its annual I/O developer conference, including the Gemini 3.5 Flash model and the Gemini Spark AI agent. With the co-lead leaving as Gemini development accelerates, significant changes have become unavoidable in how its internal AI organisation is run.

OpenAI has also recently continued both organisational expansion and moves in capital markets. OpenAI submitted a confidential application for an initial public offering early this month. As a result, it has emerged as one of the most closely watched technology listing candidates in recent years.

Against this backdrop, Shazeer’s arrival strengthens OpenAI’s research capabilities and again highlights Google’s challenge of retaining key talent. As competition in the AI industry broadens at the same time to product launches, capital raising and talent recruitment, the next moves by the two companies are drawing attention.