Gemini Co-Lead Noam Shazeer Quits Google, Joins OpenAI Before IPO

Noam Shazeer, Google’s vice president of engineering and co-lead of its Gemini AI models, announced on June 18 that he is leaving the company to join OpenAI.

The departure lands less than two years after Google paid a reported $2.7 billion to bring Shazeer back from Character.AI, the startup he co-founded after leaving Google in 2021.

A Costly Exit for Google

Shazeer, who first joined Google in 2000, is one of the most consequential researchers in modern AI. He co-authored the landmark 2017 paper “Attention Is All You Need.” That paper introduced the Transformer architecture underlying virtually every major language model today.

The news was confirmed by Shazeer on X, and Google made a brief statement: “We are grateful for Noam’s meaningful contributions to Google over the years.”

I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there.It was a difficult decision to move on. I’m incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we’ve built together. It has been an honor and a pleasure to…

— Noam Shazeer (@NoamShazeer) June 18, 2026

Timing Raises Stakes for OpenAI’s IPO Push

The move comes as OpenAI pushes ahead with plans for a public offering. The company confidentially filed an S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are advising on a listing that could exceed $1 trillion.

Adding Shazeer to its roster strengthens OpenAI’s technical credibility at a sensitive moment. The company has faced growing pressure from rivals. For instance, Anthropic is gaining ground in enterprise markets and competing in a crowded 2026 IPO wave alongside SpaceX.

Whether Shazeer’s arrival shifts product momentum ahead of the public listing is a question investors will likely watch closely.