A major shift in leadership at Google's AI division sent its stock tumbling, with shares falling up to 5% on the day. The tech giant announced that Demis Hassabis, once viewed as a potential CEO, is stepping down from his position as CEO of DeepMind. Hassabis will now serve as chief scientist at Alphabet and as chair of Google DeepMind, according to a blog post from CEO Sundar Pichai.
At the same time, Jeff Dean, an influential AI researcher with decades of experience at Google, is leaving the company to launch his own venture, Discovery Loop, alongside Sanjay Ghemawat. In a memo to colleagues, Hassabis explained his decision to transition from day-to-day operations to allow more focus on long-term strategy.
Koray Kavukcuoglu, former chief technology officer of DeepMind, will now lead the division as senior vice president, reporting directly to Pichai. The move comes as Google faces growing competition from AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI, especially in cutting-edge applications such as AI coding. Google's upcoming major AI model has also been delayed multiple times this year, while its rivals continue to release high-performing models.