This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL, Financials) is adding a familiar face to its ranks as the race for top artificial intelligence expertise heats up.
Barret Zoph, co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, will leave to join Google DeepMind as vice president of research, Reuters reports.
Zoph has been inside some of the most scrutinized AI organizations in the business.
He was a research scientist at Google Brain for six years, a unit that ultimately merged with DeepMind. He was vice president of research at OpenAI, then co-founded Thinking Machines Lab.
According to his LinkedIn page cited by Reuters, Zoph temporarily returned to OpenAI earlier this year before making the move back to Google.
The appointment is part of a bigger shakeup inside Google’s AI business.
Earlier this month, CEO Demis Hassabis stepped down from his job and other teams have also been shifted from DeepMind to the wider Google company.
Less about one executive recruitment and more about the continuous struggle for elite AI researchers is the significance for investors.
As the next generation of AI models comes together, experienced research leadership is all the more desirable especially as Google goes toe-to-toe with OpenAI, Anthropic and a rising number of well-funded startups.
