A new chapter is unfolding at Google DeepMind as Demis Hassabis steps down as CEO of the unit to take on the role of chairman. The Greek-Cypriot scientist will continue to play a central role in the company’s strategy, simultaneously assuming duties as chief scientist of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Hassabis will also retain leadership of Isomorphic Labs, the subsidiary focused on AI-driven drug discovery.
Koray Kavukcuoglu, Google DeepMind’s current Chief Technology Officer, will take on the role of senior vice president of the unit, reporting to Sundar Pichai. He is expected to cover a large portion of Hassabis’s former responsibilities.
Axios: Radical changes underway in Google’s AI division
Meanwhile, chief scientist Jeff Dean and senior Google AI official Sanjay Ghemawat are departing to co-found Discovery Loop, a public benefit company in which Google will participate as both an investor and cloud services provider.
Google’s artificial intelligence division is undergoing radical changes, as Axios reports, with the company racing to keep pace with OpenAI — maker of ChatGPT — and Anthropic, the company behind the Claude model. These moves are the latest in a series of high-profile departures and restructurings at Google, as leading AI models have advanced at a rapid pace in recent months.
