The artificial intelligence segment is still booming, and competition is getting fiercer. One of the most “aggressive” moves a tech company can make is to try to poach talent from a direct rival. This situation has been seen multiple times in AI firms, and now it has happened again. This time it is ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which has reportedly hired a key Google AI researcher.
When talking about AI, ByteDance is probably not the first name that comes to mind. Many think that the Chinese firm only owns TikTok and some video editing apps, such as CapCut. However, for some time now, ByteDance has also been developing AI-powered products. This month, the company surprised the industry with its most powerful AI product to date: the OmniHuman-1 video generator.
Wu Yonghui, AI researcher at Google for 17 years, joins ByteDance for AI development
In 2023, inspired by the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, ByteDance set up the Seed department focused on AI-powered developments. The company seems to want to take a greater step forward in the segment. According to The Information, ByteDance just signed Wu Yonghui from Google, one of the key figures during the development of the Gemini AI models.
Yonghui, who worked for 17 years at Google, will assume the role of head of Seed’s foundational research, leading research related to artificial intelligence and becoming one of the top executives at ByteDance. Yonghui, who will remain based in California, will report directly to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo.
This has happened to Google before
This is not the first time that Google has lost talented employees specializing in AI. Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder and former director of applied AI at DeepMind, currently leads Microsoft’s AI division. Additionally, Character.AI hired Noam Shazeer a few years ago, although ironically he “came home” after Google bought the company.
Sundai Pihar, CEO of Google, was asked about the loss of valuable workers in the AI segment. “Googlers have left to create over 2,000 startups, last I counted, and I think that’s great. Some of them are cloud customers down the line for us. Some of them come back. I think it’s healthy,” he said.
