Former OpenAI researcher Barret Zoph joins Google DeepMind

On August 27, Barret Zoph, a former OpenAI researcher, personally announced he is joining Google DeepMind. His AI career began at Google Brain (per his own account, starting with the Google Brain Residency program/internship), making this a return to Google.

Confirmed

• Barret Zoph announced on August 27 that he is joining Google DeepMind; the news came from Zoph himself and was reshared and confirmed by several authors, including Logan Kilpatrick (@OfficialLoganK)
• At DeepMind, he will focus on reinforcement learning (RL) and post-training work
• He started his AI career at Google Brain and later worked at OpenAI, so this marks a return to Google
• Zoph said Google has unique resources and opportunities to support RL and post-training research (as summarized by several authors relaying the news), which is one reason he chose to return

Why it matters

• Zoph is a key researcher in RL and post-training; his move from OpenAI to DeepMind continues the recent trend of OpenAI researchers leaving for competitors and could shape the competitive landscape in post-training capabilities for frontier models between the two companies.

2026-08-27 ~ 2026-08-27 · 5 related posts

• [source] Former OpenAI researcher Barret Zoch joins Google DeepMind — barret_zoph · 2026-08-27

4 near-duplicate retellings: OfficialLoganK · divy93t · xennygrimmato_ · sirbayes