Mumbai: Alphabet has announced a sweeping leadership reorganisation across its artificial intelligence business, appointing Demis Hassabis as the company’s first Chief Scientist while promoting Koray Kavukcuoglu to oversee the day-to-day operations of Google DeepMind.
The restructuring comes as Alphabet intensifies its focus on artificial general intelligence (AGI) amid mounting competitive pressure from AI rivals OpenAI and Anthropic. Investor sentiment reflected those concerns, with Alphabet shares declining around 4% following the announcement.
Under the new structure, Hassabis will relinquish his role as Chief Executive Officer of Google DeepMind and become Chairman of the AI lab while taking on the newly created position of Alphabet Chief Scientist. His responsibilities will centre on advancing AGI research, shaping long-term AI strategy and examining the broader societal implications of increasingly capable AI systems.
In a memo to employees, Hassabis said the rapid pace of progress towards AGI made it the right time to transition into a role focused on scientific leadership and long-term research priorities.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the new role was created after discussions with Hassabis to enable him to dedicate his attention to the future development of AGI, describing the work as strategically significant for both Alphabet and society at large.
Operational responsibility for Google DeepMind will now shift to Koray Kavukcuoglu, who has been appointed Senior Vice President to lead the AI research organisation while continuing in his role as Alphabet’s Chief AI Architect.
The leadership transition comes at a sensitive juncture for Google’s AI ambitions. The company has yet to launch the latest version of its flagship Gemini model despite previously indicating a June release timeline, fuelling speculation that it is ceding momentum to competing foundation model developers.
Hassabis also revealed that he intends to devote additional time to Isomorphic Labs, the AI-powered drug discovery company spun out of DeepMind that he founded and continues to lead. Reiterating his long-held belief that healthcare represents one of AI’s most transformative applications, he said the technology should ultimately prove its value by helping address complex diseases, including cancer.
According to an Alphabet spokesperson, Hassabis will oversee only a limited number of direct reports in his new role, allowing him to concentrate primarily on AGI research and long-term scientific direction.
The reorganisation coincides with a broader reshaping of Google’s AI leadership. Senior executives Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le have departed to launch Discovery Loop, a public benefit corporation dedicated to advancing machine learning, scientific research and engineering innovation.
While Alphabet did not specify the reasons behind the simultaneous leadership changes, Discovery Loop has already secured investment from Google and entered into a partnership with Google Cloud to access computing infrastructure for its research initiatives.
The latest developments follow a series of high-profile talent movements within Google’s AI ecosystem. In recent months, Noam Shazeer joined OpenAI, while senior research scientist John Jumper announced his move to Anthropic, underscoring the intense competition among leading AI companies for research talent.
According to a source familiar with the matter, senior executives within Google Cloud have welcomed Kavukcuoglu’s appointment, citing his close collaboration with the cloud division and expressing confidence that his leadership will help steer the Gemini platform towards stronger product execution and commercialisation.
