NewsHK

Google Gemini Co-Lead Noam Shazeer Joins OpenAI in High-Stakes AI Talent Shift

6/21/2026

Noam Shazeer, one of the co-leaders of Google's Gemini AI models and a vice president of engineering at the company, said Wednesday he will leave Google for OpenAI.

The move pulls a senior architect of Google's flagship AI model family directly into the hands of its most formidable rival, deepening a talent contest that now sits at the center of the competitive landscape for large-language-model development.

For market participants tracking the AI sector, executive-level defections of this caliber are a leading indicator of where research momentum may be shifting.

A Senior Hand Behind Gemini Heads for the Competition Shazeer held dual standing at Google — vice president of engineering and co-leader of Gemini, the model family the company has positioned as its primary answer to the generative AI products reshaping enterprise software and consumer technology.

Keep reading

Read the full story

Open on NewsHK