Alphabet has enacted a significant reorganization of its artificial intelligence leadership, moving Demis Hassabis out of his principal management role at Google DeepMind and naming him Alphabet’s new chief scientist, according to internal company communications. Hassabis will also transition from CEO of Google DeepMind to chairman of the unit, shifting his focus toward research and strategy on the societal implications of advanced AI.
Koray Kavukcuoglu, the unit’s chief technology officer, will take on day-to-day operational oversight of Google DeepMind. He will carry the title of senior vice president for the business unit and retain his concurrent position as Alphabet’s chief AI architect.
Leadership moves and internal rationale
In a memo circulated within the company, Hassabis framed the role change as driven by the nearness of artificial general intelligence - an advanced state of AI described in the company note - and his desire to concentrate on shaping its future. A separate companywide message from Alphabet chief Sundar Pichai said he and Hassabis had discussed a role that would permit Hassabis to devote his full attention to actively shaping the future of AGI, adding that the work is vitally important to Alphabet and humanity.
A Google spokesperson told Reuters that Hassabis will focus on research and strategy related to the societal impacts of AGI and is expected to have few direct reports. In his memo, Hassabis also pointed to "great progress" on Google’s AI models, including an unreleased upgrade called Gemini 4, and said he intends to spend more time with Isomorphic Labs, a drug discovery company he founded and leads as CEO. He wrote: "I’ve always believed the No.1 application of AI should be to improve human health. It’s time for AI to prove its unequivocal value to the world, and what better way to demonstrate that than to help finally cure diseases like cancer."
Senior departures and a new startup
At the same time as Hassabis’ role is changing, several prominent AI and engineering leaders have left Alphabet to start a new venture. Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le departed the company to create Discovery Loop, a venture that the founders say will concentrate on breakthroughs in machine learning, science and engineering. Discovery Loop is structured as a public benefit corporation.
Alphabet did not disclose details about what prompted the departures or the timing of the moves. Discovery Loop has received investment from Google and signed a partnership with Alphabet’s cloud division to provide computing capacity.
Industry context and model rollout delays
The leadership shakeup arrives at a sensitive moment for Google DeepMind. The company’s flagship upgrade, Gemini 4, has not been released despite a planned June launch, and the delay has contributed to concerns among investors and in the industry that Google may be losing ground to competitors. The company’s stock reaction reflected market unease: GOOGL shares were shown down 4.99% in the material provided with the company’s announcement.
Rivals Anthropic and OpenAI have made advances that, together with momentum behind lower-cost Chinese open-source models, have pressured Google in the generative AI arena. The company’s public messages in recent months have emphasized Gemini’s cost advantage as a selling point - a theme highlighted at Alphabet’s annual developer conference in May - rather than presenting the system as the clear state-of-the-art option.
Talent movement and prior organizational changes
The departures follow a broader reshuffling of Google’s AI units last year. In 2023, after the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Alphabet merged DeepMind and Google Brain into a combined organization called Google DeepMind. At that time, Hassabis became CEO of the merged unit and Jeff Dean was named chief scientist. Earlier in his career, Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010 and continued to run the lab in London after Google acquired it in 2014. Dean co-founded Google Brain in 2011 and led that U.S.-based research unit.
Under the leadership of Dean, Vinyals and Noam Shazeer, Google released Gemini 3 last November. That release was widely seen within the industry as narrowing the gap with leading models from Anthropic and OpenAI. Since then, however, competitors have continued to advance, and several notable researchers have moved from Google to rival organizations. In June, Shazeer left for OpenAI less than two years after Google had hired him and a team of researchers from a startup. In the same week, senior research scientist John Jumper, who won a Nobel Prize alongside Hassabis in 2024, said he would join Anthropic.
What Hassabis will do next
Hassabis’ new responsibilities at Alphabet are described in company communications as focused on AGI research and on strategic questions about how its development will affect society. He will also maintain a closer involvement with Isomorphic Labs, the drug-discovery spinout of DeepMind of which he is the founder and CEO. In his memo, Hassabis highlighted his longstanding view that the foremost application of AI should be improving human health and expressed a desire to demonstrate AI’s value by advancing medical breakthroughs.
Alphabet said Koray Kavukcuoglu will run day-to-day operations of the business unit, holding the title of senior vice president for the unit while remaining Alphabet’s chief AI architect. The company also confirmed that Hassabis will take the new Alphabet role of chief scientist and serve as chairman of Google DeepMind.
Key factual takeaways
- Demis Hassabis is moving from CEO of Google DeepMind to Alphabet’s chief scientist and chairman of DeepMind.
- Koray Kavukcuoglu will handle day-to-day responsibilities as senior vice president of the business unit while retaining his role as Alphabet’s chief AI architect.
- Several senior AI leaders, including Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, have left to form Discovery Loop, a public benefit corporation backed in part by Google and partnered with its cloud division.
- The flagship Gemini 4 model remains unreleased despite a planned June launch; the company said it has made "great progress" on its models, including Gemini 4.
- Recent moves by rivals and reported staff departures to Anthropic and OpenAI have contributed to market and industry concern about Google’s competitive standing.