Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced changes to the Google DeepMind team today, including a new role for Demis Hassabis.

Demis Hassabis was CEO of Google DeepMind, and is now handing over “day-to-day operational responsibilities at GDM.” Hassabis is now Chair of GDM and Chief Scientist of Alphabet.

We have arrived at a pivotal moment in human history. I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand. It’s critical that we collectively get the next steps right to ensure this all goes well for humanity and we usher in an incredible new age of discovery and wonder.

— Hassabis

Pichai says this role “allows him to put his full attention on actively shaping the future of AGI.” Hassabis describe this change as giving him the “time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability.”

Google DeepMind will now be led by Koray Kavukcuoglu. He was previously Chief Technology Officer of GDM and will now become Senior Vice President (SVP), reporting to Pichai. In this role, he will “oversee Gemini model development, Frontier AI research, and the Gemini app and developer teams.”

• Pichai: “Koray has been at DeepMind since its early days, and over his 13 years there, he has started our deep learning team and led the way on breakthroughs like WaveNet and DQN. I look forward to seeing him lead GDM into this next chapter.”
• Hassabis: “Koray and I have been working together for over 13 years, since the early days of DeepMind. He is one of the world’s foremost AI experts and has been championing GDM’s mission from day one. I have total confidence in Koray, Josh, and the rest of the GDM exec team as they continue to spearhead the latest AI developments across Google. The Gemini models are in good hands with Koray and the leads, as they have been for a while, and I’m excited about the great progress we’re making with our new models including Gemini 4.”

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