Noam M Shazeer

Noam Shazeer is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, widely recognized for his contributions to transformative AI technologies. A longtime Google engineer, Shazeer played a pivotal role in the AI boom, co-authoring the seminal 2017 paper 'Attention is All You Need,' which laid the foundation for modern generative AI systems.

After joining Google in 2000 as one of its early employees, Shazeer worked on several groundbreaking projects, including improving the search engine's spelling correction and developing AI systems designed to achieve human-level intelligence.

In 2021, after Google declined to release a chatbot he had developed, Shazeer left to co-found Character.AI with fellow Google engineer Daniel De Freitas. Character.AI gained significant attention, raising $150 million in 2022 and being valued at $1 billion, but faced challenges in scaling its business model. The startup offered users the opportunity to interact with chatbots simulating practical advice and even personalities like Elon Musk.

Despite these hurdles, Shazeer’s talent remained in high demand. In a major deal, Google agreed to pay around $2.7 billion to license Character. AI's technology, with Shazeer returning to Google as part of the arrangement. He now serves as Vice President at Google, playing a leading role in the development of its next-generation AI platform, Gemini.

Throughout his career, Shazeer has maintained a vision of AI as a tool with the potential to significantly impact society, from addressing loneliness to solving complex knowledge problems. Despite stepping away from his startup, he remains at the forefront of AI innovation, influencing the future trajectory of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world.

(Adapted from an article in WSJ)