Google DeepMind shakeup: Hassabis becomes Chairman, Jeff Dean leaves to start new venture

On August 6, Bloomberg reported that Google is undergoing its most profound AI strategic restructuring. Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis stepped down as CEO to become Chairman and Alphabet Chief Scientist. Chief Technology Officer Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over as DeepMind Senior Vice President, reporting directly to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

In a blog post, Hassabis said he decided to hand off day-to-day operations to focus on the bigger picture and influence the future. In his note to staff, he wrote that AGI is close and he wants to spend more energy on macro topics including regulatory frameworks. Last July, Hassabis proposed a US-led AI self-regulatory body modeled on FINRA.

In parallel with Hassabis's shift, veteran Google AI leader Jeff Dean announced he is leaving to found DiscoveryLoop, focused on automated machine learning research, and is taking several core researchers with him. Google has invested in the new venture and signed a cloud services supply deal. Dean joined Google in 1999 as employee number 30 and has been there for 27 years.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts noted that Dean's departure may intensify external scrutiny of Google's AI efforts. Earlier this year, Nobel laureate John Jumper left for Anthropic and star researcher Noam Shazeer moved to OpenAI. Alphabet shares fell roughly 4% to 5% on the news.