Google hires Character.AI co-founders, signs new licensing deal
What's the story
Noam Shazeer, the co-founder and CEO of Character.AI, is making a return to Google. Shazeer had previously worked at Google where he led the team that developed LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a language model utilized in conversational AI tools. He left in 2021 to establish his own start-up, Character.AI, which is backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm. Now, he will be rejoining as part of the Google's DeepMind team.
Team transition
Shazeer is not alone in his return
Alongside Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas, another co-founder of Character.AI and several other employees from the start-up are also transitioning to Google. This move is part of a broader strategy by Google to acquire top talent from Character. AI. In addition to this personnel acquisition, Google has secured a non-exclusive licensing agreement for the use of technology developed by Character. AI.
Strategy shift
Future plans and leadership changes
Character.AI, which has raised over $150 million in funding, largely from a16z in March 2023, announced that their goal of personalized superintelligence required a full stack approach. This includes pre-training models and post-training them to power unique experiences. However, with more pre-trained models now available, they see an advantage in using third-party LLMs alongside their own. Following Shazeer's departure, Dominic Perella will serve as interim CEO at the start-up while most of the staff remains at Character.AI.
About the app
Character.AI allows you to create and interact with characters
Character.AI is a chatbot app that leverages AI to develop virtual characters capable of conversation, task performance, and displaying emotions and personalities. The app generates text responses intended to be more human-like and realistic. Users can create their own characters or interact with existing ones, including fictional/anime characters, historical figures, and celebrities. Additionally, they can engage in text-adventure game scenarios managed by the chatbot characters. Character.AI is avalable on Android, iOS, and the web.