DeepMind CEO Hassabis steps down, becomes Alphabet chief scientist

Published Aug 6, 05:05 PM UTC

Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, is stepping down from his day-to-day leadership role as part of a major AI leadership overhaul at Alphabet. He will become chairman of DeepMind and take on a new role as chief scientist at Alphabet, focusing on artificial general intelligence (AGI) strategy and scientific applications. Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind's CTO and Alphabet's chief AI architect, will succeed Hassabis as head of Google DeepMind, overseeing operations including frontier AI models and the Gemini ecosystem. The shake-up also includes the departure of longtime Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, who is leaving after 27 years to launch AI startup Discovery Loop, which Google plans to back financially. These moves follow other high-profile exits from Google's AI operations, including Noam Shazeer to OpenAI and Nobel laureate John Jumper to Anthropic. Alphabet shares edged about 1% lower on the news.