Google reshuffles AI leadership as Demis Hassabis steps back to focus on AGI

Google announced a major restructuring of its artificial intelligence leadership Wednesday, with Demis Hassabis stepping away from the daily management of Google DeepMind to focus on artificial general intelligence and scientific research.

Hassabis will become Chair of Google DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Alphabet. He will continue advising the company’s model and research teams while remaining in charge of Isomorphic Labs, Alphabet’s AI drug discovery business.

Koray Kavukcuoglu, Google DeepMind’s current chief technology officer and Alphabet’s Chief AI Architect, will become senior vice president of Google DeepMind and report directly to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

Kavukcuoglu will oversee Gemini model development, frontier AI research, and the teams responsible for the Gemini app and developer products. He has worked at DeepMind for 13 years and previously helped lead research behind systems including WaveNet and Deep Q Networks.

Hassabis said he decided to hand over his operational responsibilities because he believes AGI is approaching and wants to focus on the broader scientific, strategic, and societal questions surrounding the technology.

In his new position, Hassabis will work closely with Pichai on global AGI strategy while continuing to advise Kavukcuoglu and other Google DeepMind leaders. He also plans to spend more time at Isomorphic Labs, where Alphabet is using AI to develop new medicines.

The leadership change comes as Google prepares new Gemini models, including Gemini 4. Hassabis said Kavukcuoglu and the company’s model teams have already been leading much of that development.

Google said the Gemini app has surpassed 950 million monthly users, while its Gemma open models have exceeded 900 million downloads. The company also pointed to growing demand for its Gemini Flash models and recent releases across robotics and cybersecurity.

The restructuring also includes the departure of longtime Google engineers Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat after 27 years at the company.

Dean and Ghemawat are launching an independent public benefit corporation focused on accelerating discoveries in machine learning, science, and engineering. Reuters identified the new company as Discovery Loop. Alphabet will serve as a founding investor and Google Cloud partner.

Dean and Ghemawat played central roles in developing Google’s early search infrastructure and several of the computing systems that supported the company’s expansion into artificial intelligence.

The changes come as Google faces growing competition from OpenAI and Anthropic and pressure to maintain its position at the frontier of AI development. Google’s latest flagship Gemini model has remained unreleased following an earlier planned launch, according to Reuters.