Key facts
- Alphabet has restructured its AI leadership, appointing Demis Hassabis as Chief Scientist.
- Jeff Dean, a prominent AI and engineering executive, is leaving Google.
- Dean and other departing Google AI leaders are forming a new startup named Discovery Loop.
- Koray Kavukcuoglu will manage the day-to-day operations of Google DeepMind.
- The changes occur amid competition and delays in Google's Gemini model development.
Alphabet, Google's parent company, has announced a significant restructuring of its artificial intelligence leadership. Demis Hassabis is stepping down as CEO of Google DeepMind to become Alphabet's chief scientist and chairman of Google DeepMind, citing the imminent arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI) as the reason for his shift to focus on shaping its future. Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, expressed confidence in Hassabis's new role.
Day-to-day operations at Google DeepMind will be managed by Koray Kavukcuoglu, who will serve as senior vice president. This leadership transition occurs as Google DeepMind faces increased competition from rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic, and amid delays in the launch of its flagship Gemini AI model.
Several prominent AI and engineering leaders, including veteran engineer Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, and Quoc Le, are departing Google to establish a new public benefit corporation called Discovery Loop. This startup will focus on research breakthroughs in machine learning, science, and engineering. The departures of these key figures, alongside other former Google AI leaders moving to OpenAI and Anthropic, highlight a notable talent shift within the AI sector.
Hassabis, who co-founded DeepMind and oversaw its acquisition by Google, will also dedicate more time to his role as CEO of Isomorphic Labs, a drug discovery company spun out of DeepMind. Alphabet did not provide specific reasons for the timing of these departures, but they come during a critical period for Google's AI development, with its Gemini 4 model still unreleased.