Google signs licencing deal with Character.AI

Startup Character.AI said on Friday it has signed an agreement with Alphabet’s Google that grants the search engine giant a non-exclusive licence to the chatbot maker’s large language model technology.

The deal, echoing ones struck by Microsoft and Amazon in the past few months, will see Character.AI co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas rejoin Google, where they were formerly employees.

Those other deals are being scrutinised by regulators, reflecting growing concern in both the US and Europe about how AI deals are put together by tech giants who are funnelling billions into bolstering their AI infrastructure and hiring the best researchers from startups.

Character.AI will get more funding as part of the deal with Google, the startup said in a blog, without disclosing the amount. Dominic Perella, Character.AI’s general counsel, will become its interim CEO, effective immediately.

“We’re particularly thrilled to welcome back Noam, a preeminent researcher in machine learning, who is joining Google DeepMind’s research team, along with a small number of his colleagues,” a Google spokesperson said in an email.

In March, Microsoft paid $650 million to bring on the cofounders and dozens of staff from AI startup Inflection. In June, Amazon hired several co-founders and employees from Adept, another AI startup.

Character.AI previously raised $193 million in venture capital from investors including Andreessen Horowitz. It was in talks to raise hundreds from millions from Google, Reuters reported in November.

Inflection and Adept raised $1.3 billion and $415 million, respectively. Law firm Sullivan and Cromwell advised Character.AI on the deal.