Google AI exodus continues as four veterans leave; Demis Hassabis steps down as Google DeepMind CEO

Google has announced a major reshuffle of its artificial intelligence leadership days after four of its veteran AI researchers—Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le—left the company to launch Discovery Loop, a startup focused on AI-driven scientific discovery. As part of the overhaul, DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis has stepped down from his CEO position and been made the newly created role of Alphabet’s Chief Scientist while retaining leadership of Google DeepMind, with CEO Sundar Pichai saying the changes will help accelerate the company’s next phase of AI development.

"With this backdrop, I’ve decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to-day operational responsibilities at GDM, so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability. I will be taking on a new strategic role as Chair of GDM and Chief Scientist of Alphabet, and I’m excited to announce that Koray will be stepping up to lead GDM as SVP of Google DeepMind, in addition to his role as Chief AI Architect of Google," Hassabis said.

Against that backdrop, Hassabis outlined Google’s AI roadmap in a blog post, describing the moment as a turning point for the company.

“We’re entering a new chapter of the AI era,” Hassabis wrote, adding that the company now has “an opportunity to accelerate our progress even further.”

Calling artificial general intelligence (AGI) “the most consequential technology of our lifetimes,” Hassabis said Google’s focus would be on building AI that is “capable, responsible and beneficial,” while ensuring its breakthroughs translate into products used by billions of people.

He also stressed that Google was uniquely positioned to achieve that goal because of its combination of frontier research, world-class infrastructure and products with global reach.

“Our differentiated full-stack approach, from world-leading research and TPUs to products used by billions... puts us in a unique position to bring the benefits of AI to everyone,” Hassabis said.

The comments accompany a broader leadership restructuring at Alphabet. Hassabis will become Alphabet’s Chief Scientist while continuing to oversee Google DeepMind and spending more time at Isomorphic Labs. Meanwhile, Koray Kavukcuoglu, previously Google’s Chief Technology Officer, will take on day-to-day leadership of Google DeepMind’s engineering efforts as Senior Vice President and Chief AI Architect. 

Supporting Hassabis’ vision, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the company was entering a period where scientific breakthroughs and product development needed to move in lockstep.

“AI is our biggest opportunity to improve people’s lives, advance science and transform industries,” Pichai wrote.

He added that Google’s investments across research, infrastructure and products have created strong momentum, positioning the company to “move faster” in bringing AI advances to users and developers around the world.

Pichai also highlighted Google’s integrated approach spanning foundational research, custom AI chips, cloud infrastructure and consumer products as a competitive advantage, saying the company is “well positioned for what’s ahead.”

The leadership changes come at a crucial time for Google, which is facing intense competition from OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta in the race to commercialise generative AI. Investors have also questioned whether the company can translate its research leadership into faster product execution after delays to Gemini releases and rising AI spending. Alphabet shares fell following news of the restructuring and senior departures.