Google Deepmind could lose its independence, and founder Demis Hassabis may soon leave the company for good.
According to a Guardian report, a former Google manager believes the "era of DeepMind as an independent actor is over," and a current DeepMind employee now calls the lab "just another subdivision" of Google. AI researcher Koray Kavukcuoglu will take over day-to-day operations from the U.S., but he won't carry the CEO title. That alone backs up the claim: DeepMind no longer has its own chief executive.
As for Hassabis, Pathfounders reports that he wanted to leave at the same time as Jeff Dean, but Google feared an even steeper stock drop than the one that already hit when Dean's departure and Hassabis's role change were announced. Instead, Hassabis was "promoted" to chairman to smooth the way for an orderly exit. He plans to spend more time on his scientific work and the pharmaceutical startup Isomorphic Labs and could leave DeepMind for good in the coming months.
With Hassabis sidelined, all Gemini-related AI development is moving to the Bay Area, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin is expected to take on even more control. Brin had already come out of retirement during Google's first "red alert" over ChatGPT and jumped back into active development. Shortly after, Google Brain and DeepMind merged into "Google DeepMind." That's also how the Gemini models got their name, since the "twin" teams from both organizations were supposed to work together on a joint project. The tensions go back years: even then, reports surfaced about frustration with the restructuring, especially from Hassabis himself.
