BREAKING
BJD, BJP spar over move to set up nuclear power plantIs the superstar taking a gamble?Father and son killin in accidentGedela Raju: Raghu Kunche wins accoladesRoad safety drive lacks progressShravan Reddy speaks about his multi-faceted role in ‘Agadha’Collectors asked to ensure minimum school staffingRakul mesmerizes in leopard-print dressLow pressure again, IMD forecasts heavy rains‘Shiva Gadi Zindagi’ first-single unveiled
Technology

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis steps down, Jeff Dean leaves after 27 years

hellohimachalse@gmail.com 06 Aug 2026 2 days ago

New Delhi: Google has just announced a massive leadership shakeup at its AI arm, Google DeepMind, in an effort to remain competitive in the fast-changing AI game. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is leaving his day-to-day duties, and Google chief scientist Jeff Dean is exiting the company after almost three decades to start a new AI company.

The reshuffle comes at a crucial time for Google, which is under increasing pressure from rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic. The leadership changes indicate the company is making a shift in its approach to splitting long-term AGI research from the development of AI products, and the changes in their leadership roles suggest this. Google thinks this architecture will enable the company to operate quicker while still investing in cutting-edge AI research.

Demis Hassabis shifts focus to AGI

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Hassabis will be the head of Google’s AI unit and its chief scientist at Alphabet. While keeping the focus on artificial general intelligence (AGI), the company will also need to move faster on AI, Pichai said.

In a message shared with employees, Hassabis said he wanted to step away from operational responsibilities to focus on the broader direction of AGI and ensuring it benefits humanity. He will also continue leading Isomorphic Labs, Alphabet’s AI drug discovery company.

Jeff Dean starts a new AI company

After 27 years at Google, Jeff Dean is leaving to co-found Discovery Loop, an independent public benefit corporation. The company will focus on automating machine learning, science and engineering to accelerate scientific discoveries, Dean said. Google will continue to be an investor and cloud partner.

Google’s head of AI research, Dean, will be accompanied by senior AI researchers such as Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, all of which will be important for Google’s AI talents.

Koray Kavukcuoglu, CTO of Google DeepMind, has been promoted to Senior Vice President and now will direct the Gemini model development team and the teams dedicated to frontier AI research and developer efforts. Google’s Gemini roadmap is in good hands, Hassabis said, and Koray emphasised speed of execution will be key as Google moves toward AGI.

Related News