Alphabet has elevated Demis Hassabis to Chief Scientist in a major AI leadership reshuffle, giving the Nobel laureate a broader mandate as Google sharpens its focus on frontier research, Gemini and AI-led scientific discovery.
Alphabet is reshaping the leadership of its artificial intelligence operations, appointing Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis as Chief Scientist of Alphabet and Chair of Google DeepMind. The move takes Hassabis beyond day-to-day management of the AI unit and gives him a broader remit focused on advancing artificial general intelligence and accelerating scientific discovery across the group.
A Broader Scientific Mandate
Hassabis has been central to Google’s AI ambitions since DeepMind became part of the company. His leadership has spanned advances ranging from frontier AI models to AlphaFold, the protein-structure prediction system that contributed to his 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside John Jumper and David Baker. He will also continue leading Isomorphic Labs, which applies AI to drug discovery.
The reshuffle places Koray Kavukcuoglu, previously Google DeepMind’s Chief Technology Officer, in charge of its operational leadership as Senior Vice President. Reporting directly to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Kavukcuoglu will oversee advanced AI research, model development and the Gemini product and developer teams.
Google Reshapes Its AI Leadership
The changes coincide with the departure of longtime Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean after 27 years. Dean and Google Senior Fellow Sanjay Ghemawat are launching Discovery Loop, a public-benefit AI company focused on using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific and engineering breakthroughs, with Google joining as a founding investor.
For Alphabet, the reshuffle separates scientific leadership from the operational demands of developing and scaling its flagship AI products. Hassabis will concentrate on longer-term research and science, while Kavukcuoglu takes greater responsibility for turning Google’s AI advances into models and products, a leadership structure that reflects the growing strategic importance of both frontier research and execution in the global AI race.
Source(s): Google DeepMind; Reuters; The Verge.
