Alphabet’s Google hired Barret Zoph as vice president of research for its DeepMind division. Zoph is a co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab and previously served as vice president of research at OpenAI.
The move marks Zoph’s return to Google, where he originally started his career in the Google Brain unit. He briefly returned to OpenAI after leaving Thinking Machines Lab before accepting this new role.
Zoph brings expertise in reinforcement learning and post-training to Google’s core AI initiatives. He will focus on the development of Gemini, Google’s flagship artificial intelligence model.
This appointment occurs during a period of significant talent reshuffling across major AI laboratories. Google aims to enhance its competitive standing against rivals like OpenAI through this strategic hire.