Google is reshuffling its senior artificial intelligence team, with Chief Scientist Jeff Dean leaving the company after 27 years and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis moving upstairs into a chairman role. The changes were announced by CEO Sundar Pichai and caused Alphabet’s stock to decline more than 4% on the news. Hassabis is also becoming the new Chief Scientist of the parent company, Alphabet Inc.
A new leadership structure for Google DeepMind
According to Pichai, Dean is departing on good terms to launch his own company with senior Google fellow Sanjay Ghemawat. The CEO noted that Google is investing in the new startup. “After an incredible 27-year run, Jeff Dean is at a moment where he wants to try something new, and we’re excited to support him in that,” Pichai said in the blog post. The company is investing in the new venture, though Pichai said little about the nature of the startup beyond its goal to accelerate discoveries in machine learning, engineering and science.
DeepMind will now be led by its Chief Technology Officer Koray Kavuckuoglu. He is being promoted to head of the AI unit and will report directly to Pichai. Kavuckuoglu is currently leading the development of Google’s next-generation Gemini 4 model. Hassabis was one of the co-founders of DeepMind, which was acquired by Google in 2014. Since then, the former CEO has been at the forefront of virtually all of the company’s work in AI.
“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,” Hassabis said in a post on X.
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In a subsequent post, Dean announced that the new venture is called Discovery Loop. It is focused on AI for science and engineering and is set up as a public benefit corporation, similar to Anthropic and OpenAI. Moving forward, Hassabis will work with Pichai on strategic and global issues relating to AI.
These leadership changes come as Google tries to stay ahead of a competitive AI industry. The company competes with Anthropic PBC, OpenAI Group PBC and others in the race to develop more sophisticated frontier models. Google is simultaneously pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the infrastructure needed to run both its own and its customers’ AI models. In its most recent earnings report, Alphabet said it became cash flow negative for the first time ever due to its massive capital expenditures.
Dean will remain at Google until the end of the year to help transition operations. The new Discovery Loop startup will operate as a public benefit corporation, ensuring that its profits are used for social good. This structure mirrors that of Anthropic and OpenAI. The firm aims to apply AI techniques to solve complex problems in scientific research and engineering.