Barret Zoph leaves OpenAI for vice president role at Google

Barret Zoph co-founded the AI venture Thinking Machines after leaving OpenAI earlier this year. He and fellow co-founder Luke Metz rejoined OpenAI in January, but Zoph’s return was brief, ending in June after five months heading AI enterprise sales. The executive has now accepted a position as vice president of research at Google, a company where he has worked before.

Google’s spokesperson said Zoph will apply his expertise in reinforcement learning and post-training techniques to the Gemini effort. The move adds to a pattern of rapid turnover among senior AI leaders, particularly at OpenAI, which has seen several high-profile departures recently.