Google Overhauls AI Leadership As DeepMind CEO Steps Aside
(Wednesday August 05, 2026 @05:00PM (BeauHD)
from the deepmind-shuffle dept.)
- Reference: 0184868732
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/08/05/1718218/google-overhauls-ai-leadership-as-deepmind-ceo-steps-aside
- Source link:
Google is reshuffling its AI leadership as Demis Hassabis [1]steps away from day-to-day management of DeepMind to become chairman and Alphabet's chief scientist, while CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu takes operational control. Meanwhile, longtime chief scientist Jeff Dean and several prominent researchers are leaving to launch their own company. Axios reports:
> Hassabis will add the title of chief scientist for Google parent company Alphabet and also continue to lead Isomorphic Labs, the company's AI drug discovery spinoff. Koray Kavukcuoglu, the current chief technology officer of Google DeepMind will serve as senior VP of the unit, reporting to CEO Sundar Pichai.
>
> Dean, a 27-year Google veteran is starting Discovery Loop, an independent publicity benefit corporation in which Google will be an investor and cloud provider. Joining him in that effort are Google senior fellow Sanjay Ghemawat as well as Oriol Vinyals, a DeepMind VP and Quoc Le, a Google Brain co-founder.
>
> [...] In an interview with [2]The New York Times , Dean indicated that leaving Google, a public company, gives him more leeway to focus on scientific discoveries associated with AI as well. "We might make decisions that are not necessarily in the company's purist financial interests," he told NYT.
"I've been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand," Hassabis wrote. "It's critical that we collectively get the next steps right to ensure this all goes well for humanity and we usher in an incredible new age of discovery and wonder."
"With this backdrop, I've decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to-day operational responsibilities at GDM, so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability"
[1] https://www.axios.com/2026/08/05/google-deepmind-demis-hassabis-ai
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/technology/google-researchers-ai-startup.html
> Hassabis will add the title of chief scientist for Google parent company Alphabet and also continue to lead Isomorphic Labs, the company's AI drug discovery spinoff. Koray Kavukcuoglu, the current chief technology officer of Google DeepMind will serve as senior VP of the unit, reporting to CEO Sundar Pichai.
>
> Dean, a 27-year Google veteran is starting Discovery Loop, an independent publicity benefit corporation in which Google will be an investor and cloud provider. Joining him in that effort are Google senior fellow Sanjay Ghemawat as well as Oriol Vinyals, a DeepMind VP and Quoc Le, a Google Brain co-founder.
>
> [...] In an interview with [2]The New York Times , Dean indicated that leaving Google, a public company, gives him more leeway to focus on scientific discoveries associated with AI as well. "We might make decisions that are not necessarily in the company's purist financial interests," he told NYT.
"I've been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand," Hassabis wrote. "It's critical that we collectively get the next steps right to ensure this all goes well for humanity and we usher in an incredible new age of discovery and wonder."
"With this backdrop, I've decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to-day operational responsibilities at GDM, so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability"
[1] https://www.axios.com/2026/08/05/google-deepmind-demis-hassabis-ai
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/technology/google-researchers-ai-startup.html
"I feel AGI is close at hand" (Score:3, Insightful)
by memory_register ( 6248354 )
Is that AGI you feel, or the icy waters as the ship you're on goes down? Either way the Mag7 are going to see a huge correction in their stock price and global reputation after wasting a trillion dollars chasing godhood.
Re: "I feel AGI is close at hand" (Score:2)
by liqu1d ( 4349325 )
I would be all for that if not for the knock on effect on pensions etc. so many people are going to get hurt from this hubris.
Re: (Score:2)
by toxonix ( 1793960 )
I feel that my success is close at hand. Please give me money so I can privately work on making my dream robot girlfriend without having to report progress daily to a business emperor.
"new age of discovery and wonder" (Score:2)
by ffkom ( 3519199 )
There absolutely will be a "new age of discovery and wonder". The question is just whether those discoveries will be pleasant, and whether people will just wonder how it all came to this.
Deckchairs (Score:3, Insightful)
How long will the titan stay afloat ?
And who gets on the door ?
Re: (Score:1)
Not your language first, English is, hmmm?
Re: (Score:2)
In this case the door is made of solid gold, and engraved in bold script upon its gleaming surface is the message "Do not disturb until AGI arrives".
The deckchairs are the white plastic kind, and those go to everyone that isn't working on AI stuff.