Daniel de Freitas
Daniel de Freitas is a computer engineer who led the development of Meena, a 2.6-billion-parameter chatbot at Google, and co-authored the LaMDA paper. He joined Microsoft in 2012 to work on search systems for Bing before moving to Google in 2016. In 2021 he left Google to co-found Character.AI with Noam Shazeer. In August 2024 a licensing deal between Google and Character.AI brought him back to DeepMind. As of October 2026, he is a research scientist at Google DeepMind.
Timeline
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2012–2016
From Bing search to Google
He joins Microsoft in 2012 to work on search systems for Bing, after a computer engineering degree at the University of São Paulo, and moves to Google in 2016.
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2020
Developing the Meena chatbot
At Google, he leads the development of Meena, a 2.6-billion-parameter chatbot presented in a January 2020 research paper.
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2021
Co-founding Character.AI
He leaves Google in 2021 to co-found Character.AI with Noam Shazeer.
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2022
Co-authoring LaMDA
He co-authors the LaMDA paper, and the company he co-founded opens its first public beta in September 2022.
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2023
Forbes' first Brazilian AI billionaire
He enters the Forbes list in 2023 as Brazil's first AI billionaire, with an estimated fortune of R$1.15 billion.
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August 2024
A licensing deal and a return
In August 2024, Google signs a licensing deal with Character.AI and brings him back to Google DeepMind with Noam Shazeer.
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As of October 2026
A research scientist at DeepMind
He is a research scientist at Google DeepMind.
Sources and credits
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- Daniel De Freitas - Wikipedia
- Quem é Daniel de Freitas, o primeiro brasileiro a fazer fortuna com IA - Paraíba Business
- Character.ai - Wikipedia
- Introducing Character
- Noam Shazeer - Wikipedia
- [2201.08239] LaMDA: Language Models for Dialog Applications
- Daniel de Freitas
- Character.AI CEO Noam Shazeer returns to Google | TechCrunch