Google hires Character.AI talent and signs licensing agreement

Google hires Character.

• Character.AI, a leading startup in the realm of chatbot technology, has announced a licensing agreement with Alphabet’s Google on Friday.
• Google also announced the rehiring of Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who is the founder, CEO, and co-author of the Transformer paper at Character.AI and was previously a Principal Software Engineer at Google.

OUR TAKE
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a central force driving innovation in today’s rapidly evolving technology sector. Global tech companies are racing to explore the infinite possibilities of AI, which has not only spawned a range of revolutionary products and services, but also reshaped the flow of talent and collaboration patterns across the industry. Against this backdrop, the latest licensing agreement between Google and Character.AI is not only another example of collaboration between tech giants and innovative startups, but also an insightful reflection of the current battle for talent and intellectual property in the AI space.
–Elodie Qian, BTW reporter

What happened

Character.AI, a leading startup in the realm of chatbot technology, has announced a licensing agreement with Alphabet’s Google on Friday. The agreement grants Google non-exclusive rights to Character.AI’s expansive language model technology.

The deal follows a series of similar transactions by major tech companies, including Microsoft and Amazon, who have recently made significant investments in AI startups and talent.

These actions have drawn the scrutiny of regulatory bodies in the U.S. and Europe, who are concerned with the manner in which tech giants are shaping the AI industry through substantial financial outlays and the recruitment of top researchers.

As part of the agreement, Character.AI will receive additional funding from Google, although the exact sum has not been disclosed.

Google also announced the rehiring of Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who is the founder, CEO, and co-author of the Transformer paper at Character.AI and was previously a Principal Software Engineer at Google.

Noam Shazeer is the founder, CEO, and co-author of the Transformer paper, and was previously a Principal Software Engineer at Google, while Daniel De Freitas is the President of Character.

Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas left Google in 2021 out of frustration with the search giant’s bureaucracy and founded Character.AI in 2022, and now they’re returning to Google DeepMind with a team of about 30 researchers.

Google has expressed a warm welcome to Noam Shazeer. “We’re particularly thrilled to welcome back Noam, a preeminent researcher in machine learning, who is joining Google DeepMind’s research team, along with a small number of his colleagues,” a Google spokesperson said in an email.

Also read: Character.AI co-founders return to Google with tech agreement signed

Also read: Character.AI Unveils Group Chats for Conversations with Multiple AI Companions

Why it’s important

In the past months, Microsoft acquired the co-founders and a number of staff from AI startup Inflection for $650 million. Amazon also made a significant hire, bringing in several co-founders and employees from another AI startup, Adept.

Character.AI has a robust financial backing, with $193 million in venture capital raised from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz. The startup was reported to be in discussions with Google for a further investment in the hundreds of millions, according to Reuters in November.

The funding achievements of Inflection and Adept, with $1.3 billion and $415 million raised respectively, highlight the substantial capital flowing into the AI sector.

Sullivan & Cromwell, a renowned law firm, provided advisory services to Character.AI throughout the negotiation of the licensing agreement with Google. Their expertise would have been crucial in navigating the complex deal terms to ensure the interests of the startup were protected.