PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Niki Parmar

Niki Parmar is an AI researcher and company founder who co-authored the 2017 paper "Attention Is All You Need", which introduced the Transformer architecture and laid the foundation for ChatGPT and other generative AI systems. Before a computer science master's at the University of Southern California, graduating in 2015, she studied at the Pune Institute of Computer Technology. In 2015 she joined Google Research, and in 2017 she moved into Google Brain as a research software engineer. Two startups followed: Adept, which she co-founded in 2022, and Essential AI, which she co-founded with Ashish Vaswani in 2023. Today she is a member of technical staff at Anthropic, which she joined in December 2024.

Now at
Anthropic
Works
28

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026. Citations and h-index are hidden because this OpenAlex record may be incomplete or mix in other authors.

Timeline

  1. By 2015

    Degrees from Pune and USC

    Her degrees run from a Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology at the Pune Institute of Computer Technology to a master's in computer science at the University of Southern California, graduating in 2015.

  2. 2015–2017

    Joining Google Brain

    In 2015 she joins Google Research, and in 2017 she moves into Google Brain as a research software engineer.

  3. 2017

    The Transformer paper

    She co-authors "Attention Is All You Need" in 2017, a paper that introduces the Transformer architecture built entirely on self-attention mechanisms. The paper lays the foundation for ChatGPT and other generative AI systems.

  4. 2022

    Co-founding Adept as CTO

    Leaving Google, she co-founds Adept as its chief technology officer, a role she holds in July 2022.

  5. 2023

    Co-founding Essential AI

    In 2023 she co-founds Essential AI with Ashish Vaswani.

  6. Since December 2024

    Technical staff at Anthropic

    In December 2024 she joins Anthropic as a member of technical staff. There she works on reinforcement learning research, and she says her work contributed to Claude 3.7 Sonnet, which Anthropic released in February 2025.

Sources and credits

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  1. The Woman Who Rebuilt AI's Blueprint: Niki Parmar, Co-founder, Essential AI & Adept AI Labs analyticsinsight.net. Checked 15 October 2026.
  2. [1706.03762] Attention Is All You Need arxiv.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  3. USC Alumni Paved Path for ChatGPT viterbischool.usc.edu. Checked 15 October 2026.
  4. A new wave of digital assistants aims to transform the future of work fortune.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  5. Essential AI Secures $56.5M in Series A Funding to Build 'Enterprise Brain' maginative.com. Checked 15 October 2026.