LONDON — Google has reorganized its artificial intelligence leadership, with Google DeepMind co-founder and Chief Executive Demis Hassabis stepping away from day-to-day management to take on broader research responsibilities as Alphabet seeks to sharpen its competitive position in the global AI race.
The restructuring places Koray Kavukcuoglu, formerly Google DeepMind's chief technology officer, in charge of the company's Gemini AI development and research operations, reporting directly to Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai. Hassabis will become Alphabet's chief scientist while serving as chair of Google DeepMind, allowing him to concentrate on long-term scientific research and artificial general intelligence, according to people familiar with the changes and company reporting.
The leadership shift marks a significant change for Google, whose AI strategy has increasingly centered on rapidly bringing research into commercial products following intensified competition from rivals including OpenAI and Anthropic. Sergey Brin, Alphabet's co-founder, has also taken a more active role in shaping the company's AI direction since returning to day-to-day involvement after the emergence of ChatGPT, according to reports.
Hassabis, who co-founded DeepMind in 2010 before Google acquired the London-based AI company in 2014, has become one of the world's best-known AI researchers. He shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on AlphaFold, an AI system capable of predicting protein structures that has been widely used in biological research.
The reorganization comes during a period of heightened pressure on Google to accelerate development of its Gemini family of AI models while responding to growing competition in consumer and enterprise AI. Recent months have also seen the departure of several prominent AI researchers from Google, adding to investor scrutiny over the company's ability to retain top talent.
According to reports, the operational center of Google's AI efforts will move closer to the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters as Kavukcuoglu assumes responsibility for Gemini development, while Hassabis focuses on longer-term scientific initiatives rather than daily management.
Neither Google nor Alphabet has indicated that the restructuring changes the company's overall AI strategy of pursuing advanced AI systems while integrating Gemini technology across its products. The latest changes instead reflect a redistribution of leadership responsibilities as the company seeks to balance frontier research with faster commercialization of AI technologies.
