Google paid $2.7 billion to rehire an artificial intelligence genius who left the tech giant in a huff three years ago to found his own startup, according to a report. Noam Shazeer, a 48-year-old software engineer who was first hired by Google as one of its first few hundred employees back in 2000,

Google reportedly made a hefty payment to rehire a former employee Noam Shazeer who will now lead its Artificial Intelligence (AI) project.

Just last month, Google and Character.AI revealed that Shazeer, De Freitas and certain members of Character.AI’s research team would be joining Google’s AI unit DeepMind.

Google recently paid $2.7 billion to rehire 48-year-old AI expert Noam Shazeer, an industry pioneer and co-founder of Character.AI.

Google (GOOGL) has reportedly paid $2.7 billion to acquire a chatbot that allows you to talk to AI versions of celebrities. The whopping sum, however, also brings in the company’s top employees — including a former Googler.

Google pays $2.7 billion to rehire AI expert Noam Shazeer, who left to found Character.AI. Noam Shazeer returns to lead efforts on Gemini.