Noam Shazeer, a pioneering AI engineer and early Google employee (2000), has re-joined the tech giant after parting ways. This homecoming comes with a hefty price tag of $2.7 billion. AI Genius Noam Shazeer Shazeer's departure in 2021 stemmed from Google's hesitance to release a chatbot he co-developed with Daniel De Freitas.

Just last month, Google and Character.AI revealed that Shazeer, De Freitas and certain members of Character.AI’s research team would be joining Google’s AI unit DeepMind.

Google reportedly paid an eye-popping $2.7 billion to lure back a former employee who quit three years ago when the search giant refused to release the chatbot he had developed.

Google recently paid $2.7 billion to rehire 48-year-old AI expert Noam Shazeer, an industry pioneer and co-founder of Character.AI.

The acquisition involved purchasing stakes from Character.AI’s investors and employees, leading to a substantial payout for Shazeer, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.