Google DeepMind Leadership Overhaul: Hassabis Steps Back, Jeff Dean Exits After 27 Years

Demis Hassabis steps down as Google DeepMind CEO to become Chief Scientist of Alphabet, while Jeff Dean departs to co-found an AI startup. CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu takes the reins.

Google is reshuffling its AI leadership in what may be the biggest shakeup at the company's research arm since the merger of Google Brain and DeepMind.

Demis Hassabis is stepping down as CEO of Google DeepMind, transitioning to the role of Chair of GDM and Chief Scientist of Alphabet. In a message to employees, Hassabis framed the move as necessary to focus on "the big picture" of AGI, which he described as "close at hand." He will continue to lead Isomorphic Labs, Alphabet's AI drug discovery subsidiary.

Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind's CTO and Google's Chief AI Architect, will take over as SVP of Google DeepMind, reporting directly to Sundar Pichai. Kavukcuoglu has been at DeepMind since its early days and led breakthroughs including WaveNet and DQN.

Jeff Dean, Google's Chief Scientist and a 27-year veteran, is leaving the company. He and Google Senior Fellow Sanjay Ghemawat are launching an independent public benefit corporation called Discovery Loop to accelerate discoveries in machine learning, science, and engineering. Google will be a founding investor and Cloud partner.

The changes come amid fierce AI competition. The Gemini app has reached 950 million monthly users, and Pichai emphasized the need to "accelerate all this work and stay focused on the AI frontier." Google is also preparing the release of Gemini 4.

Sources: Google Blog, The Decoder