Barret Zoph Joins Google as VP of Research
Barret Zoph, a prominent artificial intelligence researcher and co-founder of the startup Thinking Machines, has joined Google as vice president of research, according to TechCrunch. A Google spokesperson confirmed the appointment to the Wall Street Journal, stating that Zoph will apply his expertise in reinforcement learning and post-training to the development of Gemini models.
Zoph's move to Google follows a turbulent period of executive transitions across the artificial intelligence sector. After spending two years at OpenAI, Zoph departed in late 2024 to launch Thinking Machines alongside former OpenAI executives. He subsequently returned to OpenAI in January for a brief five-month tenure leading enterprise AI sales before leaving the organization in June.
The high turnover rate among leading artificial intelligence laboratories has drawn significant attention from industry builders and observers. OpenAI has experienced numerous high-level departures over the prior eight months, affecting key operational divisions ranging from commercial leadership to core infrastructure teams, even as the company prepares for a potential public offering and scales its data center operations.
Prior to his latest roles, Zoph worked at both Google and OpenAI, accumulating deep technical experience in large language model training architectures and reinforcement learning systems. His return to Google bolsters the company's internal research leadership as competition intensifies across the foundational model landscape.
Based on reporting by techcrunch.com.
