Google Deepmind is going through a major leadership overhaul. Demis Hassabis is stepping away from day-to-day operations to become Alphabet's Chief Scientist, while chief scientist Jeff Dean is leaving the company after 27 years to start his own AI venture.
Hassabis said the move will give him more time to focus on "the big picture." In a message to employees, he described this as "a pivotal moment in human history." Hassabis said he has spent his life working toward AGI and now believes it is "close at hand." He previously described humanity as "standing in the foothills of the singularity."
Hassabis will continue to work closely with Google CEO Sundar Pichai on "strategic and global AGI matters" while advising Deepmind's teams. He will remain based at the company's London headquarters and also devote more time to Isomorphic Labs, Alphabet's AI drug discovery subsidiary. Hassabis has said that "the No. 1 application of AI should be to improve human health."
Koray Kavukcuoglu will take over day-to-day management of Google Deepmind. He previously served as Deepmind's chief technology officer and Google's chief AI architect. As senior vice president of Google Deepmind, Kavukcuoglu will report directly to Pichai and oversee Gemini model development, frontier AI research, the Gemini app, and Google's AI developer platforms.
