Barret Zoph returns to Google as research vice president

Published Wednesday, August 26, 2026 · 11:07 PM EDT

Barret Zoph, a co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, is returning to Google as a vice president of research, the Wall Street Journal reported. The report says Zoph left OpenAI in June and Thinking Machines Lab in January after a short stint at OpenAI. Google has recently lost several high-profile researchers, according to the report.

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